


Song Unsung

by TiredRazzberry



Series: A Squire [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Class Differences, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Murder, Past Infidelity, Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy, gunshot wedding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6557542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiredRazzberry/pseuds/TiredRazzberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They began a game of pretend when they were nine, having known each other only minutes. He was Duncan the Small, Prince of Dragonflies, and she was his Jenny. They played all morning, afternoon, and evening. They never stopped playing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alyn

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything below is the property of George R R Martin.

If his father hadn't been so lustful, then Alyn wouldn't be so miserable. He knew this because his feet fell like feathers against cool stone, rough wooden floors, and foreign rugs alike. Scullery maids, guards, his brothers, and the guilty party himself never knew Alyn was about unless he made himself known with a word. So Alyn could not recall a time when he was unaware of the foul circumstances under which he had entered the world. 

Donnel Payne married Elinor Moreland when they were both five and ten. They had not been betrothed. Hadwyn had been growing in Elinor's belly, and Lord Moreland could not give a soiled woman to Lord Frey. So he sent his squire home to Oar's Rest with a new bride already heavy with child. When the two arrived at Lord Donnel's ancestral home, his father Lord Willem Payne had been quick to send them away again. It was not a punishment, rather so that Donnel and Elinor could take up residence at Blackbridge Castle down the Tumblestone River. The cadet branch seat that had sat empty since Uncle Podrick had died the previous winter. 

Mayhaps because his father had awarded him for his lust that first time, Lord Donnel never thought to learn to contain himself. 

Lord Donnel and Lady Elinor had two more sons in quick succession after Hadwyn named Irwyn and Raymun. They were meant to be their last. After Raymun, Measter Kyle warned that Elinor could bear no more sons without losing her life as well as quite possibly the babe. Lord Donnel had three heirs already, and though Hadwyn was a lean cut of meat, Irwyn was proving to be the strong and stout sort, and Raymun had the best of his parents at birth and none of the shortcomings. Lord Donnel had no need to demand more sons of his lady wife and made the grandiose gesture of publicly declaring that he would leave her bed, though never her heart. It was said that Alyn's Lady mother had wept happy tears at that.

Alyn knew from the scullery maids that his father kept his word thanks to them and some miner's wife named Jenny. Alyn knew from the guards that Lord Donnel used to sneak from Blackbridge every night, and some days even, to go into the mountains looming at the castle's back. Alyn knew from the kennelmaster that his father once took two freshly-winged pups from one of his bitches; he had given one to Lady Elinor and she had named it Boot for his coloring, and he had taken the other into the mountains and had not returned with it. Alyn knew from his brothers that Elinor knew, but only accosted their father for his adultery once. That had not changed anything.

There were some comforts in the lady's life. Lady Elinor had been very fond of Boot and her boys, and even her husband most of the time. They played games and went on hunts and took trips to the sea. Lady Elinor's collection of seashells still sat on shelves in Hadywn's bedchamber. Their fool Pennies was hired by Lady Elinor when he performed with a mummer's troupe for her twentieth nameday. There were plenty of comforts in the lady's life. It had simply been hard for her to be happy surrounded by things that she only had thanks to Lord Donnel. 

Hadwyn once said to Irwyn, "I think she would've gone home, had Grandfather let her. I think I would have gone with her." 

Irwyn had hit him hard for that and then stormed from the room. Alyn had just narrowly ducked into an alcove and remained unseen. 

It went on for eleven years, Lord Donnel with his scullery maids and Jenny, and Lady Elinor with her boys and Boot. Then one foul winter, the snow had fallen with such force that the mountain roads had been blocked. Even the sheep paths became too perilous for the sake of a mistress. The villagers settled along the river hunkered down in their little cobblestone, thatched-roof houses, and the residents of Blackbridge barricaded themselves inside the keep. Each guard found a scullery maid or two to warm their icy beds in the barracks. Measter Kyle took up residence with Septon Oswin, the kennelmaster, and the blacksmith and his apprentice in his little turret. Lady Elinor's single lady's maid found herself in Hadwyn's bed. Irwyn was pigheaded in more ways than one, so he chose to freeze alone. Just one-and-ten, Raymun took advantage of being his mother's baby and took to sleeping with her each night. 

One night, however, when Raymun went to her chamber, he found the door barred. He'd rapped persistently for minutes on end, fidgeting fearfully in the chilled hall, before his father opened the door. Raymun had never known his father to go to his mother's chamber at night and was hopelessly confused. Before he could ask why his father was visiting Mother so late in the evening, Lord Donnel ordered him to spend his nights with Irwyn from now on. 

"You're too old for your mother's bed." The Lord had given the barest explanation. 

That Raymun must have been very different from the one Alyn knew because that Raymun silently obeyed their father. On his way to Irwyn's chamber, Raymun had found Boot curled up next to a section of wall warm from the chimney on the other side of the stone. Raymun had been very confused as to why his mother's loyal hound wasn't curled up at the foot of her bed as usual. That night, Boot curled up at the foot of Irwyn's bed while the brothers elbowed one another, and later at the foot of Raymun's bed when the harsh winter began to subside into spring. Boot only curled at the foot of his lady's bed one more time. It was a bed of blood that time.  

Lady Elinor became pregnant with Alyn sometime in the middle of that harsh winter. Because the snow still fell hard, no horsemen or ravens could be sent to announce the occasion. Disapproval of Donnel's actions did not become apparent until winter was nearly over, Alyn had already been born, and Lady Elinor's body had been burned rather than buried for the soil was still frozen solid. Alyn heard that his Moreland grandfather had been so furious and distraught that he had nearly marched on House Payne, and that his mother's single lady's maid had fled back to the Riverlands in disgust of them all as soon as she could. Lady Joanna Lannister had to leave her children at Casterly Rock to soothe Lord Moreland's temper and remind him that taking up arms against House Payne was the same as brandishing swords at Elinor's babes. She then came to Blackbridge and chastised Lord Donnel publicly, and gave each of his sons a gift as a comfort for the loss, even Alyn who hadn't known he had lost anything. 

After Elinor died, scullery maids became just scullery maids to Donnel, and the name Jenny meant a memory rather than a mistress. Of course, this all came too late to make his elder sons not hate him or free his youngest child of the darkness cast over his cradle at birth. If his father hadn't been so lustful, then Alyn wouldn't be so miserable.

"Do you got my knife, Had?" Irwyn called as he dug through his saddlebag. He was so short and his mare so tall that he had to balance on his toes to look inside in search of the dirk Uncle Pate had given him for his twenty-first nameday. There was nothing really special about it, and Uncle Pate had been sending Irwyn daggers since he was six years old so he had many to choose from, but it was the newest and the sharpest and Irwyn found sharpening blades tedious. Sometimes, he only spoke to Alyn to order him to do it for him. 

"Depends, little brother. Do you got my bow?" Hadwyn shouted from across the yard. He was stomping around with one of father's, and he looked very unhappy about it. Alyn shuffled backward into the long shadow of the castle forge. 

Irwyn slapped his saddlebag closed and strode across the yard over to Hadwyn. It didn't look as impressive or intimidating as Irwyn likely hoped, for Irwyn's legs were thick rather than long, and when he came to a halt in front of their elder brother, Hadwyn cut the more impressive figure. Hadwyn was not as muscular as Irwyn, but he was taller than even Father and since he'd been knighted had taken to wearing mail and greaves everywhere, as if Tywin Lannister would ride up to Blackbridge any moment and order him to lay waste to some fools who had never heard the Rains of Castamere before. Hadwyn scowled down his nose at Irwyn. 

Irwyn was pigheaded, however. "Why would I take your stupid bow? It's just some cheap thing. I'd probably snap it in two shooting a hare." 

Hadwyn was indignant at that. "I carved that bow myself from the most ancient oak in this valley. It is as sturdy as dragonbone, so _of course_ , you couldn't keep your mitts off it, little brother." He poked Irwyn's chest roughly. Irwyn was sturdy and didn't budge as easily as Alyn did when it happened to him. Instead, Irwyn slapped Hadwyn's hand away. 

In an instant, Hadwyn was wrestling with Irwyn on the ground, rolling in mud and mule dung like they were still Alyn's age. Alyn couldn't resist laughing at his brothers as he peered around the corner of the forge. It was all right since Hadwyn and Irwyn were laughing as well, their missing possessions forgot in favor of reliving bits of their boyhood. His brothers didn't know he was there and he stood many feet away, but Alyn felt close to his brothers then. 

Something bony yet heavy leaned against Alyn's hip. He looked down to find Boot rubbing up against him, seeking affection. Alyn petted the old hound's thinning fur and did not need to look around to know Raymun was nearby. He soon felt his elder brother standing directly behind him, spying on their elder brothers right along with him. A pair of muscular arms wrapped around his shoulders and a hand lifted to cover Alyn's mouth when he giggled just a bit too loudly at Irwyn shoving Hadwyn's face in a smelly brown puddle. 

When Hadwyn and Irwyn climbed to their feet, Raymun hoisted Alyn over his shoulder. "Let's make ourselves scarce before they shove us into the mud, too." He whispered laughingly to Alyn's rear. Boot followed them into the castle and up the stairs not without some trouble. 

From the windows in Raymun's chamber, they could still watch Hadwyn, Irwyn and everyone else milling about the courtyard, and their brothers were rather loud. "They're making up for Cousin Ilyn." Raymun had once said when they were being especially frightening for little Alyn with their screaming and hollering around the castle. Now that he was older, Alyn knew that the polite term for his brothers as "boisterous", and it applied to Raymun just as well. 

"Why do they get so worked up over bows and daggers?" Alyn asked Raymun as he watched Irwyn empty his saddlebag out onto the muddy earth. 

"It's not about bows and daggers. It's because they're theirs." Raymun answered absently. He was busy packing his own things for the hunting trip. Winter was on its way and expeditions into the mountains for trophy stags and fur-trapping would have to wait until the snow melted away. All of Alyn's brothers would be gone along with their father, some knights, and wards for several weeks. They planned to work their way as far north as Wyndhall before turning back. Alyn would be left among indifferent servants, his goodsisters, and his nephews. 

Raymun turned away from his wardrobe and immediately frowned at Alyn, noticing his sudden solemnity. "I said to ask Father to come along." He snapped. Alyn looked away guiltily. 

Hadwyn ignored him mostly, but when he didn't it usually left Alyn feeling even smaller than what he was. When Bessa was around, it wasn't so bad, but Hadwyn still pushed him around like a scullery maid would a dirty sponge. Irwyn didn't like to have Alyn around and would not put energy into ignoring his presence. On the other hand, he had no problem putting a great deal of effort into scaring Alyn out of rooms and to bed early from the dinner table. Jeyne was an ever obedient wife and never spoke against her husband's actions if she had a problem with them at all. Raymun had never ignored Alyn, though, or treated him anymore roughly than the sons of the guards treated each other. Alyn hated to disobey Ray, especially when all he wanted was to better Alyn's situation. 

However...

"Father won't listen to me. He doesn't even look at me." Alyn dared to look at Raymun from the corner of his eyes. "But maybe--"

"No." Raymun shook his head resolutely. "He won't ever listen to what I have to say. I've stepped on his toes too many times. Everything I want for myself, I have to get Hadwyn or Irwyn to ask for me." And they'd never do that for Alyn, it went unsaid. 

After a moment of sullen silence, Raymun went on. "Father feels guilty about you, though. He'd do anything for you if you only asked." 

Alyn knew it might be true, but it was still hardly imaginable. He'd never asked Lord Donnel for anything. Everything had always been wordlessly provided. A dirk of his own as fine as any of his brothers', a well-bred pony, then a stallion (though he had yet to master riding it), and recently a mummer's show for his ninth nameday. To actually ask something of Lord Donnel meant speaking to him, however, and Alyn had never done that before. Lord Donnel had always been a distant figure in his life, a shadow cast against the curtains of a high up window. Seen speaking to others, looking others in the eye, but never doing the same with Alyn, as if the boy were an unseen ghost. 

He was not ill cared for at Blackbridge. Alyn wore as fine clothes as his elder brothers, slept in a chamber just as comfortable, and was seen to by as many servants for his needs. Ser Roger had overseen him every afternoon in the training yard since he was five. Maester Kyle took him into his turret each morning for a lesson in history, geography, or a science. Septon Oswin even seemed to take a keener interest in Alyn's spiritual health than he did his brothers. 

Truly, Alyn felt unloved rather than uncared for. He lived in a castle, but he felt only one person in it really loved him. 

"When you return, will you stay?" Alyn asked Raymun. He prayed to whichever god presided over brothers that he would.

He'd momentarily forgotten how heedless of the Gods his brother was. "I won't." Said Raymun, turning back to the wardrobe in search of something he didn't mind ruining with blood and raw nature. "I'm expected at Oar's Rest in three months. Lady Bethany and Lady Jocelyn are both due to deliver their babes around then, and there will be a tourney if all goes well. Father expects me to woo a highborn lady at some point during the festivities." 

Alyn's forehead creased with confusion at that. "You're doing what father asks of you?" 

Raymun barked a laugh and crossed the chamber in two long strides to ruffle Alyn's hair affectionately. "Oh little brother, I was just repeating what was  _expected_ of me."

"Father ought not to make bets then. What he expects rarely seems to ever happen." Alyn whispered with a tight smile. He really didn't like the idea of Raymun being so keen to go against their father. Lord Donnel would grouse about it to Hadwyn and Irwyn, putting them in foul moods because there would be even greater expectation for them to be the _good_ sons. It was a game of dominoes that ended in Alyn hiding in his bedchamber and behind his good sister Bessa's skirts for days on end. 

Raymun slapped him on the back and let out a big belly laugh. He liked it when Alyn spoke like him. 

"Will you come home after the tourney?" Asked Alyn. 

Raymun's laugh died and he shook his head, this time seeming a bit sorry actually. "After that, Father won't be likely to let me back. So I'll find a Lord to serve through the winter. I'm not stupid enough to try my hand at the hedge knight trade in the depths of the season like Irwyn."

"I think he just doesn't like Lady Jeyne that much," Alyn said quietly. 

Raymun seemed to consider that for a moment as he continuously ruffled Alyn's hair like he was a favorite hound. He'd better stop before Boot got jealous. "Could be." He finally declared. Then he looked Alyn squarely in the eye, smiling broadly. He did it for so long that Alyn began to fight against fits of giggles. 

"What? Why are you staring?" He asked, covering his mouth. "Have I got something on my face?" 

"Just a silly look. Come along as my squire." Said Raymun and Alyn stopped laughing. 

"Father wouldn't let me." He didn't need to know his father to know that much. If Lord Moreland had the slightest impression that the child his daughter died bringing into the world would spend the winter shivering on the back of a hedge knight's saddle, it would mean trouble for the house, and Lady Joanna was not around to settle another dispute. "If Grandfather heard, Ray..." 

Raymun nodded understandingly, smiling sadly now.

"I would. I _want_ to." He truly did. More than anything. But Alyn had met his grandfather. Lord Moreland liked to visit Elinor's children more than he did his living daughters and their young. Alyn always felt like he was under a heavy bearskin rug midsummer when his grandfather visited. He felt that if he could, his Moreland grandfather would tuck Alyn in a box and stash him away from the world for safekeeping until the Long Night returned and went again three times over. Alyn hated that feeling with all he could muster against such a tired old man as his grandfather.  

Raymun sighed and wrapped his big arms around his little brother. "You're too young to understand such grownup things, and yet you do. I wish you could be a child and agree to anything you like without care of the consequences." He whispered in Alyn's ear. Alyn wrapped his arms around Raymun's neck and allowed himself to be lifted from his seat by the window. Raymun carried him over to a little mirror that he used to shave and about nothing else as his wild hair indicated. 

The brothers looked at themselves in the mirror, though Alyn was unsure why. Were they supposed to look presentable for something later? Then his eyes wandered to his brother's face in the looking-glass beside his own. Raymun was wearing that look. Alyn held his breath in anticipation of what was about to be said. 

"Mother used to do this with me and our brothers," Raymun whispered like a prayer. None of Alyn's brothers prayed really, but at least with Raymun, there was one thing--one _person_ he could not speak of any other way. "She said she liked to see what of her was in each of us. But I also think she just liked to see herself _with_ us. I mean, why else would she do it with Boot as well?" Alyn's glanced at the old hound on the bed. His ears had perked up, hearing his own name, or maybe recognizing his old mistress was being spoken of.

"Is she in me?" Alyn asked and he watched his brother smile in the mirror.

"Not one drop, I'm afraid." Alyn thwacked Raymun on the chest for that and they laughed. All the while, Raymun japed about how Alyn was really some old clump of Father's nail clippings and shaved beard hair that'd come to life when Mother had taken a watering can to it out in the herb garden. Alyn eventually wiggled out of Raymun's grasp and dashed for the door. Raymun swept him up into his arms again, however, and began swinging him about the chamber by his arms. They soon collapsed in fits upon Raymun's bed along with Boot.

They curled to face each other while Boot gnawed toothlessly on Raymun's leather boots. 

"Come with me," Raymun said again, not smiling this time. 

Alyn wanted to. He was certain that only Raymun truly loved him in this world. Everyone else either spited him over a dead woman, loved him for a dead woman, or was indifferent. If he agreed to go, those for whom he was a proxy would quarrel over it, and then those who spited him would blame him for it, and he'd make things terrible for those who were indifferent. So he was forced to stay at Blackbridge no matter what. Alone with indifference or coexisting with spite. Alyn didn't mean to start crying. 

"Oh, Lyn." Said Raymun. He held Alyn close to his chest and let him weep there for a time. 

* * *

With Father and all his brothers gone, Alyn was Acting-Lord of Blackbridge. However, when smallfolk wandered into the castle, bringing up cases of land dispute or tales of strife, Alyn simply sat in his Lord father's humble throne, a high-backed armchair of black-painted wood, and nodded. Maester Kyle, the steward Josmyn, and Septon Oswin handed down all the judgments. Alyn was simply there to give their words legitimacy. 

"I believe Jon Farmer has the better claim to the well. Don't you agree, My Lord?" Maester Kyle would ask. Alyn would nod. 

"A stable boy could be spared as a helper for Edric the crofter. Don't you agree, My Lord?" The steward Josmyn would ask. Alyn would nod.

"The Mother can sometimes be too generous. And there are no nearby motherhouses. To take Pate Dyer's youngest girls as scullery maids would be a benefit to all parties. Don't you agree, My Lord?" Septon Oswin would ask. Alyn would nod. 

He nodded so often that he sometimes felt dizzy. Alyn was fortunate for the distractions Lady Bessa and the fool provided. Lady Bessa sat in a little horsehair-padded emperor chair to the right of the throne. It had been Lady Elinor's seat once, and one day it would truly be Bessa's. She kept a plate of cakes in her lap for herself and Alyn. One would go to her, and the next she'd feed to Alyn, pretending as if she was a mistress doing so for her very lofty king. She used a funny, syrupy voice and everything. 

Sometimes, Alyn fiddled with the idea Lady Bessa was the second person at Blackbridge to truly love him. A lot of times, however, he couldn't help feeling it was pity that fueled these indulgent acts more than love. Still, he smiled and giggled with her, accepting each cake from her hand like a starving man. Even if she pitied him, he might have loved her. 

The fool, dressed in motley of the House Payne colors and face painted black and white, danced behind Bessa. Often making silly faces over her shoulder or imitating her imitations. A few times, he sneaked up behind the complaining smallfolk to pull tricks on them or do imitations of their griping if said griping was about something stupid like a cow or a creek. More than a few times, he sneaked up behind Maester Kyle, Josmyn, and Septon Oswin to do much more vicious and hilarious things, making Alyn and the smallfolk laugh alike. Lady Bessa was too ladylike to laugh, but she smiled and sometimes handed a cake to the fool, thanks for his comedy. 

This was the afternoon routine for many weeks. In the mornings and evenings, there was no laughter, cakes, or bobbing of Alyn's head. 

Lady Bessa was not his blood sister, so Alyn was not allowed to share her bed at night as he would have liked. Hadwyn might throttle him for it on principle anyway. Each morning, Alyn had to make the dreadful journey from his chamber on one side of the keep to the door of Bessa's chamber on the other side. There, he would still have to wait on a yew bench tucked in alcove for her to emerge. During all the time in between, he was left vulnerable. 

Alyn cracked open his chamber door to peer outside, ignoring how Josmyn chuckled at his cautiousness. Alyn wished that his father trusted him to dress himself as he trusted his brothers. They stopped needing servants in the morning when they were Cedric's age. Even Cedric didn't have someone helping him fasten his doublets in the mornings. 

"Is the coast clear, My Lord?" Josmyn teased. 

Alyn turned and scowled up at the steward. "It is indeed, Ser." 

Josmyn just chuckled some more and waved his hand, as if shooing Alyn off from his own bedchamber. "Off with you then." He was shooing Alyn off from his own chamber. 

Alyn wanted to be surer before he stepped out in the hall, but with his Raymun-like comment, he had condemned himself to an early departure. He crept out of his chamber followed by a much more relaxed Josmyn. The steward shut the door very loudly and waved goodbye to Alyn as he went off to perform his other morning duties. Alyn considered returning to his chamber as soon as Josmyn took the corner, but he knew Cedric had no qualms about barging in when Josmyn wouldn't be around. 

Rather than risk invasion, Alyn began to slink quickly through the halls towards Bessa's room. He moved silently, as always. When he was on the move, he had never been caught, not even by keen-eared animals. But Alyn still feared that one day he might not find his way to Bessa's chamber door without Cedric finding him first.

It was when he was still that Cedric would find him. Sitting at tables enjoying lunch in private, brushing down his stallion in the stables, or lounging in the library with books about knights and conquerors; those were the kinds of places Cedric would catch him. In those places, Alyn's nephew would play the bully like a well-trained mummer. Alyn had had his face shoved down into his plate and then been knocked from his chair. Cedric had spooked Alyn's stallion just to see him fall on his rear in fright. Books had been yanked from his grasp and the pages torn. 

It wouldn't be so horrible if Cedric didn't seem to think it was all just a long-running game between himself and Alyn. Even when Alyn cried and begged him to let him be, the younger boy would grin and laugh like they were playing come-into-my-castle rather. Cedric didn't seem the difference between what he did to Alyn and Irwyn and Hadwyn's wrestling in the mud. 

Alyn's feet fell silently against the stone floors, and the wooden stairs did not creak for he knew where to put his weight. The ornate rugs did not rub against the soles of his boots. Bessa's door came into sight and Alyn breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled back the curtain hiding the alcove with the yew wood bench. 

"Good morning, Alyn." Cedric sang. He hopped to his feet from the bench, smiling at Alyn's paling face. 

As his nephew stepped into his space, Alyn began a hasty retreat, never taking his eyes off Cedric. 

Cedric was just seven, but he was bigger than Alyn. He'd been _born_ muscled like a miner and as he had grown older his long Ruttiger legs had become ever more apparent. He'd been bigger than Alyn since he was five, and it had been around that time that he'd started tearing books from Alyn's hands.

"Don't be craven!" Cedric seized Alyn's wrist and yanked him into the alcove. He flung Alyn to the ground and yanked the curtains back, leaving them in the dark. Alyn crawled for the sliver of morning light creeping in under the curtain. Cedric stepped on his hand. 

"I didn't do it on purpose, you baby!" He protested when Alyn cursed him as he had heard Hadwyn curse Irwyn for similar offenses. 

"Liar!" Alyn spat, and he kicked his leg at what he thought might be Cedric's. Really it was the leg of the bench, by the sound of clattering wood it seemed. Whatever the case, Cedric let out a cry and Alyn was satisfied. He made to get to his feet. 

Cedric shoved him right back down to the cold floor. "You can't leave yet." 

"Why?" Alyn summoned up every ounce of Lordliness in his person. "I'm Acting-Lord of Blackbridge! You can't tell me to leave or stay anywhere!" 

Cedric laughed at that, and Alyn flushed despite not knowing why. "Bessa's given Hadwyn no babes. My mother says that means me and Father will both be the _real_ Lord of Blackbridge someday. You're just a fourth son and will never be lord of anything. You're only actin' lord because Grandfather feels bad that you don't got a mother." 

"Shut your mouth!" Alyn climbed to his feet and shoved at the taller boy. "I'm your uncle, you've gotta obey me or the Father will punish you!" 

Cedric shoved him back, driving Alyn back to the floor with ease. This time, Alyn knocked his head against the wall on the way down. On the floor, his head swam and he was only vaguely aware of Cedric seating himself on his chest. It became hard to breathe. 

"I wanted to show you somethin'." Said Cedric, and then there was something cold at Alyn's throat. Tears pricked Alyn's eyes and he began whimpering pleas despite his pride writhing at the indignity. "Don't be such a babe!" Cedric chided him. "I just wanted to play outlaws. Did you hear about the Kingswood Brotherhood?" 

He went on chattering about outlaws running around further south, making trouble for King Aerys. Robbing highborns, branding hostages, defending the smallfolk, stealing kisses from Dornish princesses. They were a young group, but infamous already and full of motley characters that seemed to have enthralled Cedric. "I'm going to marry Wenda the White Fawn one day." He declared at one point. Alyn tried to focus on Cedric's words rather than the cold steel still pressed under his chin. 

"Let's play Kingswood Brotherhood." Cedric declared. The steel disappeared and Alyn breathed a wet sigh of relief. Then it reappeared, pressed against Alyn's wet cheek. "I forgot to tell you about the Smiling Knight!" Cedric exclaimed. Alyn let loose a fresh round of pleas. Cedric ignored him and went on. "He's entirely mad, like they say the King is. Only he can swing a sword like a Kingsguard, too. Some say he's Wenda's lover, because she's a touch mad herself, but others say his only lovers are his defeated foes. Have you heard why they call him the Smiling Knight?" 

"Ge-et-t o-off-f-f." Alyn sobbed. 

" _Have you?_ " Cedric pressed. He pressed the blade, too. Alyn's cheek became wet with more than tears, and he screamed like a stuck pig. 

" _No! No! No!_ " 

"I'll tell you then," Said Cedric with glee. He began tracing over Alyn's cheeks and lips with the tip of the blade. Not cutting, but threatening to. "They say, Alyn, I say they say that he cut his own cheeks wide open, _like this_ , so he'd always--"

There was sudden blinding light and Cedric's weight disappeared. Alyn curled onto his side and began crying in earnest. It was quiet compared to the harsh slapping of skin and against skin amid curses and cries mere feet away. When the slapping stopped, there was then running, and a shadow cast itself over Alyn. 

"Alyn? Alyn, are you all right?" He did not answer Bessa, and that frightened her out of her wits. 

"Guards! _Guards!_ Fetch Maester Kyle, quickly!"

Two guards rushed upstairs. One went ahead and foisted Alyn over his shoulder and carried him off to Maester Kyle's turret. The other stayed behind with Lady Bessa for a moment before catching up with Alyn and the first guard. Over the guard's shoulder and through bleary eyes, Alyn watched Irwyn's dirk grow smaller on the hallway floor. 

Maester Kyle was less concerned about the cut to his cheek and more about Alyn's inconsolable state. He ordered Lady Bessa from the room when she herself began to weep. "You'll make him worse, woman." He said. Of course, her sudden absence had the opposite of the intended effect. 

Alyn choked on his own wet sobs and mucus. His breaths were short and ragged, and it became increasingly difficult to regain his breath in between bouts of utter hysterics. The aforementioned hysterics were only made worse each time Maester Kyle or one of the guards made to touch him and he flinched away in fright. Alyn swiped their hands away and backed himself into a corner by the windows. At certain moments, he almost felt like climbing out. There was a tree he could use and everything.

Alyn stopped caring about his cut cheek before he left the alcove. All he wanted was to be left alone. He didn't want anyone to touch him, maybe not even Lady Bessa. Alyn wanted to run out to the stables and hide in a stall with Boot and one of the colts. He wanted to sneak past the guards and play by the river and pet the smallfolks' lambs. He wanted to take his stallion and ride after the hunting party deep into the mountains.

At some point, Alyn began to cry out for people who were not there. 

Then, as if things couldn't be more chaotic and awful, there was a ruckus out in the hall with Lady Bessa. Lady Jeyne entered the chamber, flanked by her boys. Cedric was red with fresh bruises and cuts from Lady Bessa's ring. Gavan sucked absently at his thumb as he teetered on his toddler legs, secured seemingly only by his livid mother's hand wrapped around his. Lady Bessa shoved into the room past Jeyne and Alyn found himself swept up into her arms with his bloody cheek nestled against her bosom. His crying was reduced to whimpers of "Ray, Bessie, Ray, Mother..."

From Bessa's bosom, Alyn watched a war be waged in the maester's turret. Lady Jeyne at first blamed Alyn for Cedric's state, but Lady Bessa readily confessed to beating the boy in retribution for his attack on Alyn. From there, the ladies quarreled over Cedric's guilt.

"It was a game. It's not my son's fault if your pet is too soft and yellow even to play outlaws."

"I found him about ready to disfigure Alyn with his father's stolen dagger. What do you think Irwyn will think of that?" 

Maester Kyle tried to see to Cedric, but Lady Bessa protested. "The victim should be served first." 

"I say we follow succession. You are sworn to the Lord of his castle, after all, Maester Kyle. Cedric comes before Alyn." Lady Jeyne argued. 

A dark look overtook Maester Kyle then, and he chided them both. "Must this rivalry live on through the children as well? Let me see both boys at once, and let us worry first about Lord Donnel." As Maester Kyle drifted from one side of the room to the other, from Alyn to Cedric, so did words. 

_Lord Donnel will be furious._

_But Lord Moreland even more so._

_Hands might be asked for._

_Lord Tywin might even be called._

_Kevan, if we are fortunate._

_Ilyn is the head of the Hand's personal guard. That might that bring Tywin, or dare I say even the King into the fold?_

_Don't be foolish. This is simply horse-play gone awry._

_But the King is mad, and brimming with spite._

_As is Lord Moreland._

"It will be his birth all over again." Maester Kyle declared gravely, as if summarizing a lesson. It became apparent to Alyn that Measter Kyle cared less for justice and the health of either boy and more about keeping the peace between House Payne of Blackbridge and House Moreland. He watched the maester coax the ladies in the chamber into a lie. Alyn took a harsh tumble; Cedric quarreled with some nameless guard's nameless son. Alyn watched in horror as Lady Jeyne and then Lady Bessa were convinced. Then the ladies set to making the boys comply. 

"You don't want to make trouble, do you?" Alyn was asked, and he felt blamed. It was not an unusual feeling. Lady Jeyne blamed him for the perceived lack of attention her sons received from their Lord grandfather. Alyn never asked for a new horse before Cedric got one, or for the finer clothes. The guards and other servants blamed him for the starts he gave them, even when he wasn't trying to sneak around. It wasn't his fault that they so easily overlooked him. Irwyn blamed him for Lady Elinor dying as much as he did Lord Donnel, and Hadwyn likely did as well in some fashion. It was not an unusual feeling, being blamed. 

Alyn didn't want to make trouble. He nodded and repeated the lies Maester Kyle concocted until the adults seemed satisfied with his mummer's farce.

Lady Jeyne had to threaten Cedric. "I'll tell your father who took his dirk. Do you want that?" It didn't work. Cedric was not easily cowed, just like his mother. 

"Do you think Irwyn will honestly take up for the child?" Lady Bessa snapped at her goodsister. Lady Jeyne's silence spoke volumes, and Cedric suddenly became smaller than Alyn. "Irwyn may blame the blameless, but he does not let the guilty go unpunished. You should know this very well." Alyn knew that Lady Bessa's words were meant to be the kind that children weren't supposed to completely understand. But Alyn understood just fine. 

* * *

 A snake spooked his horse. Coltsfoot had reared up and thrown Lord Donnel off his saddle and into a ravine. The maester at Wyndhall had done all he could, but that had not been enough to spare Alyn a parent. 

The hunting party had returned bearing black standards. From Lady Bessa's windows, they had known something was wrong. Lady Bessa took Alyn outside the castle walls to meet the party, and they found they had not been the only ones struck with sudden dread. Lady Jeyne held Gavan so closely in her mute terror that little Gavan was the farthest thing from mute, and Cedric kept asking Josmyn and Maester Kyle what was happening. Alyn clung to Lady Bessa's skirts and she held him flush against her side as they watched the party make their way down the mountain. 

Hadwyn led the party atop Lord Donnel's darling mare Coltsfoot. Irwyn rode just behind him, looking like Cousin Ilyn. He donned black, his face was thin, and his long black hair shone with grease. Behind Alyn's eldest brothers were the knights, wards, and squires that had accompanied them. They had left in a cluster but returned in two orderly rows. Sers Petyr Hill, Manfryd Yew, Tywin Greenfield, and Jon of Nunn's Deep bore the standard of House Payne, Lord Donnel's personal standard, and the pitch black standards of death. Their wards Elys Lantell and Jaime Greenfield flanked a large cart pulled by coursers atop their palfreys. The cart was overflowing with skins. Stag hides, bear and wolf pelts, fox and hare skins. However, Alyn thought it might be excessive even for his father and brothers, and he soon concluded that more than furs was inside the car. Behind the cart, Alyn spotted Raymun who rode amongst the squires. He did not look stony like Hadwyn atop Coltsfoot, or wretched like Irwyn atop his nameless destrier. He looked scared. 

When the party arrived at the castle gates, his brothers dismounted while the rest of the party crossed the drawbridge into the courtyard. Irwyn immediately swept Jeyne and his sons into his arms, shocking Jeyne. Gavan wailed at the added pressure. Hadwyn greeted Lady Bessa with a courteous bow. "My Lady." Bessa curtsied, and Alyn bowed to his brother at her urging. They did not stop clutching each other, and Hadwyn made no comment on it. Instead, he went to a knee so he was face to face with his youngest brother. 

"Alyn," Hadwyn began quietly, gently even. "You are an orphan now." 

Alyn swallowed and nodded and clutched Bessa's skirts tighter. She went to try and comfort him, rubbing circles on his back and one of her hands running through his hair. Alyn looked beyond her and Hadwyn, to Raymun. His brother saw this and came to his side. Alyn was taken by his hand and led over to Raymun's courser Motley. He climbed into the saddle, followed by Raymun. They rode off towards the Tumblestone. 

They passed sheepherders, wheat farmers, and miners on their way home from the foothills. In the nearby village, the blacksmith, weavers, and their wives waved jollily to Raymun, and the whores standing outside the brothel hooted and hollered. Raymun waved and nodded acknowledgment, but kept on riding closer to the riverside. Eventually, they arrived. Raymun tied Motley to a young elm growing close to the water, where she could drink from it, and then dug two fishing poles out from a hollow fallen tree nearby. Alyn kicked at the dirt in the meantime. 

They fished in silence for hours, from noontime to late evening. They caught nothing and did not comment on it, even when there were nips. There was no excitement in nips this fishing trip. The first words spoken between the brothers in weeks were courtesy of Raymun: "Come with me." 

The usual protest was on the tip of Alyn's tongue, but then he recalled that his father was dead. He wondered if that meant Lord Moreland would be slower to take issue with how his daughter's youngest child was being brought up. "If Lord Moreland will let me." He said to Raymun because he was unsure. 

His brother shook his head and his expression went from carefully blank to gravely serious. He looked too much like Cousin Ilyn, worse than Irwyn even. Alyn shrank away from his brother, but Raymun seized his shoulders and made him stay. 

"You don't get it. Now that father's gone, Grandfather is going to ask Hadwyn to hand you over as a ward, and Hadwyn is going to do it." Raymun was shouting in Alyn's face. He whimpered in his brother's grip and frantically wondered what had gotten into him to be so frightening. "Grandfather is going to come here and pluck you up like he always wanted, and he's going to take you back to Grainfort and he won't ever let you leave as long as he lives because he wants a second chance at keeping his daughter safe using her son." Raymun went on. "He'll take everything purple and gold you own and replace it with brown and green, and I'll never be allowed around you again. Nor will Bessa, Uncle Pate, Cousin Jon, or even Cousin Ilyn. We won't see each other for years and years if you don't come with me this winter, Alyn. So it can't be _if Lord Moreland will let you_ \--it has to be in spite of what anyone and everyone would say! Do you understand?"

Alyn nodded in dumb shock. 

Raymun smiled, relief washing over him. Alyn was then tightly embraced by his elder brother. He did not return with as much fervor. He was still much too shocked. 

Along the ride back to Blackbridge Castle, Raymun said they were in fact not going back. Alyn started at that. "We're leaving already?"

Raymun chuckled weakly and ruffled Alyn's hair. "No, it's just too dark and too long a journey. We'll stay with a friend of mine in the village." 

That friend was the village barber. His name was Tom, and his little cobblestone house was grubby and crowded. It was squeezed between a haunted-looking inn and an ash-covered forge occupied by coppersmiths and goldsmiths who were at work night and day, much like the miners up in the mountains who supplied them. There were two levels to Tom's house. The second story was where Tom, his wife, and their six children dwelt. The first story was where Tom did his business of cutting the villagers' hair, pulling their rotten teeth, sewing up their gashes, and leeching their sick. The first story was where Alyn and Raymun were given leave to camp for the night, on a little cot in the back against the warm stone wall shared with the forge. 

Alyn woke before Raymun the next morning. He stayed curled against his brother for an hour more before growing terribly bored and curious about what time of day it was. He slipped from the cot and threw his white tunic from the day before back on. It was filthy, but he didn't care. As he crept towards the window at the front of the house and nudged open the shutters, he pulled on his purple hose. 

Outside, the sun was peaking over the mountains as he did over the windowsill. Alyn watched the smallfolk out on the street, preparing for the day. Next door, the smiths were already banging away. Dirty miners marched together towards the hills with pickaxes on their shoulders and oil lamps dangling at their sides. Across the muddy street, a baker worked to make the air smell scrumptious, a chandler and his children worked in the morning light outside their front door and coopers fashioned barrels.

Alyn moved to sit on the windowsill and watch the morning unfold. He smiled and waved at the miners as they passed, and to the chandler family working across the street. Then he recalled his father was dead and he should not be smiling. Alyn should have been back at Blackbridge, praying in the sept with his brothers, goodsisters, and nephews. Alyn then wondered if Hadwyn and Irwyn would do such a thing. They, along with Raymun, were said to have little faith in the Gods. Irwyn once even called them their mother's milk tales. 

He did not hear Raymun make his way from the cot to the window and did not know his brother was awake until he was swept up into his arms. "Ray!" Alyn shrieked as Raymun let himself fall onto his back to the earthen floor. Raymun laughed and rolled around, grappling with Alyn as he whined and wiggled. When free, Alyn hopped back into the windowsill and out into the street. Raymun leaned out the window and swiped playfully, trying to catch him for a second round of roughhousing. Across the street, the chandler and his children laughed.

"Come up to break your fasts, my lords." Called Tom's wife from the shambling staircase behind Raymun. Alyn allowed Raymun to pull him back through the window and they raced up the stairs after the wife.

Alyn had never been in a smallfolk home before. It was strange for him to see an entire life squeezed into one room. The kitchen was the fireplace and a table with little cabinets nailed into the wall above, and a mere foot from that was their meal table. It was a narrow thing with two long benches. Beds lined the walls, as to not take up too much space, even if there were only three. One was bigger than the rest, so Alyn assumed it was either Tom and his wife's, or it was the one his four daughters shared. An overturned tub served the purpose of another table in the last available corner; it looked to be where Tom's wife and daughters did their mending and sewing. Next to it was their chamberpot. It sat right underneath a window overlooking the backstreet. 

Breakfast was stale bread with butter and cuts of lamb shared between ten people. Tom's wife tried to give Raymun and Alyn a bit more, but Raymun stubbornly refused her and elbowed Alyn to do the same. So the highborns ate equal portions to that of the smallfolk that morning; Tom thought to mark the occasion with some of the ale he kept around the dull the inevitable pain of most of his patrons. Raymun did not refuse the tall mug he was offered, but he made Alyn take a small thimble like Tom's children got. 

Near breakfast's end, Tom inquired casually to Raymun, "What brought you into town yesterday and kept you so late, Ser?" Tom's wife and children all fell silent, apparently curious as well. 

Raymun's smiling face gave nothing away as he answered, "I took my little brother fishing by the river. We were too stubborn to leave before we caught something. Alas, we never did." If Alyn had been one of Tom's sons, he would have believed him. 

Tom laughed at Raymun's apparent pigheadedness. "Well don't make a habit of it. Mya and I have got plenty of mouths to feed already."

That seemed to strike a nerve with his eldest children, for the eldest girl and eldest boy declared that they were bringing in their own incomes now and would be marrying soon and that Tom ought not to be making them out as ingrates to their highborn guests. Tom laughed them off and kissed his eldest daughter's cheek. 

"Do not remind me how old you are. I forbid it. You shall always be my little Beth. Even the Father weeps when the Maid becomes the Mother." 

Alyn was suddenly reminded of Lord Moreland. 

He had heard that Lord Moreland had been a true testament to the Father in his youth. A good lord, a faithful husband, and a loving father to his four daughters and four sons. Lady Elinor had been the youngest, and to whom he had been the best. Even after she shamed him and left Grainfort with Donnel, Lady Elinor apparently never spoke ill of her father. Her greatest desire, in fact, had been reconciliation. 

But Lord Moreland felt ill-treated by Lady Elinor when she lived. He had never let her go wanting, had loved her without care that her sewing was atrocious and her musical ability was lacking, and he had gone to great lengths to secure her a fine match with Lord Walder Frey of the Twins after his wife Alyssa Blackwood died. Then Elinor went and laid with his squire and got with child. In so obviously snubbing her betrothal to Walder Frey, Elinor snubbed her father. Lord Moreland, thus refused, to look upon her or her sons by that squire until she swore a sincere and humble apology. 

Lady Elinor never did, and never would have. In her mind, love and children born of love were not cause for apology. 

"Are you ill, My Lord?" Tom's wife asked Alyn, a tentative hand raised to feel his forehead. Alyn shook his head and stuffed his mouth with the last of his bread. Mya did not look convinced and poured him a fresh cup of water, likely thinking he was unused to ale. Alyn drank it greedily, for the bread was very _very_ stale. When he was done, Mya gave scraped her last bit of lamb onto his plate. 

"Oh, don't." Raymun protested before Alyn could. 

Mya waved the brothers off. "I refuse to send Lord Donnel's boy home feeling ill, Ser. He would never forgive me, and such a good lord does not deserve an ill child." Her smile fell as she looked between the brothers. One of them, likely Alyn, gave away the truth. "Is something the matter with Lord Donnel?" Mya asked.  

One look from Raymun told Alyn he should leave the table. So he did, leaving Raymun to explain the truth of things to Tom's family. He put on the rest of his clothes from yesterday and went out to the street to wait with Motley for Raymun to be finished. While he waited, he thought about his mother and father. They had been reunited at last, but was it a happy reunion? Alyn closed his eyes and tried to imagine them as happy as people made out their days as a squire and a maid. Would Lord Moreland be upset at their reunion? 

They were back at Blackbridge Castle within the hour, but barely. When they rode into the courtyard, it was surprisingly bustling. Alyn had assumed the castle would seem as dead as, well, the dead in times of mourning. It was while watching servants hurry around to prepare for the funeral that he realized why it was quite the opposite. In the great hall, Alyn and Raymun found their eldest brother sat on the black throne, Lady Bessa seated at his side as she had been seated by Alyn's the day before yesterday. It was truly her seat now that Hadwyn had ascended to Lord of Blackbridge. 

"My Lady wife informed me of what happened while we were away." Hadwyn greeted Alyn. He was very obviously not speaking to Raymun. "Cedric has been dealt with by his father, as has his mother and Maester Kyle for their attempts in concealing the attack." 

Alyn stared at his brother. This was likely the most words spoken at once by Hadwyn to Alyn in all the latter's life, and they almost seemed kind. He wondered at first what new influence Bessa had gained over her husband, but then he saw the truth. Hadwyn no longer wore his mail and greaves. He donned Lord Donnel's checkered purple and white cloak, with the gold clasps representing the coins on their sigil. On the wall behind the black throne, Lord Donnel's personal coat of arms had been replaced by Hadwyn's. Hadwyn was attempting to act lordly and to be lordly meant to hand down justice to victims. Even if the victims were little brothers who killed their mothers. 

"What are you on about, Had?" Raymun demanded. Despite asking Hadwyn a question, Raymun focused his eyes on Alyn's face and he noticed his new scar for the first time. Alyn covered it quickly, a simple feat as the scar was no bigger than a nasty pockmark. Raymun's face made it seem like a horrid disfigurement, however. 

At once, Raymun spun on his heel to face Hadwyn and Bessa. His face was burning with anger like nothing Alyn had ever seen before. "Look at what happens when I leave him, even when I thought he might be safe with Bessa! Not only is he attacked, but the attacks are concealed for fear of old men. Brother, I demand custody of Alyn this coming winter and to take him far from this black place." 

Alyn did not think that because he was suddenly a lord, Hadwyn would care to fight Raymun on such a matter. If he would agree to hand him over to their grandfather, he was just as likely to hand him over to their brother. There was no guilt on Hadwyn's shoulders for Lord Moreland to leverage as he had often done with Lord Donnel, so Hadwyn was free to make any decision he pleased. Alyn only worried that Lady Bessa might think Raymun intended to drag him along in the snow. 

It was a surprise when Hadwyn's reply to Raymun's request was not consent, and a shock when it was not outright denial. It was instead news. 

"You may not take Alyn away from Blackbridge, Raymun, as you will not be leaving Blackbridge yourself this winter."

Raymun gaped and demanded an explanation. 

"Father could never be bothered to arrange a marriage for a third son, and he thought Irwyn's marriage to Lady Jeyne was good enough as far as ties with House Ruttiger go. But I am of an opposite inclination. The raven had already been sent, and Lord Ruttiger has been always been keen about marrying off his daughters as a pair. The day after this coming Maiden's Day, you will wed Lady Jeyne's sister Lady Tya." Hadwyn informed Raymun in a way that assured he'd practiced it a half hundred times to come off as properly cold and resolute. 

Alyn watched Raymun rage against Hadwyn for the next hour like a storm beating against a sturdy castle. He and Lady Bessa watched anxiously as Raymun refused a match of any kind, let alone to a sister of Lady Jeyne, and Hadwyn brandished his new title like Valyrian steel. The topic moved away from the betrothal eventually, to sorer things. Father, Mother, Lord Moreland, and at last Lady Bessa. Raymun accused Hadwyn of forcing the marriage for fear that his wife's barrenness endangered their line. "But you have Irwyn and his sons already, so why punish me, and Alyn moreover." Raymun roared. 

That had been too much. Hadwyn's stony lord exterior shattered and then he was on top of Raymun, mere inches from Alyn's feet. Alyn was pulled away by Lady Bessa and out of the great hall at long last. She cried angrily all the rest of the evening in her chamber where she barricaded herself and Alyn. She clutched him close, but when she actually looked upon his face, her crying grew worse. 

Alyn had been a baby when Bessa married Hadwyn. Winter had just ended, Lady Elinor's ashes were still warm, and Blackbridge was in need of a lady to sing songs, do needlework, and kiss Alyn's hurts as he grew older. Hadwyn had been fifteen, and Bessa fourteen. They went two years without a bedding, because Bessa was so young. Because she had no children of her own to worry about, Alyn had the closest thing to her own. When she turned sixteen, that was meant to change. But no babes were ever born of Hadwyn and Bessa's union, and Alyn had remained the closest thing to her child. Her "pet" as Jeyne often called him. 

Alyn stayed in Lady Bessa's chamber that night. She all but refused to let him leave her, obstinately for fear that his brothers would turn violent again. So he curled next to her in her bed that night for the first time. However, he did not sleep beside her. There was too much to think about to sleep. 

He was an orphan now. His mother dead nearly ten years, his father dead six days. The day after Maiden's Day, his brother Raymun would wed Tya Ruttiger. That might make him happy, his brother being forced to stay home for the winter, except his grandfather Lord Moreland was likely to come and snatch Alyn up soon. He'd be taken to far off Grainfort, and made a stand-in for his dead mother for a sad old man. Lady Bessa was just as sad. Boot had been ill as of late. 

That seemed so messy; Alyn tried to sort it all out better in his head. 

His doting if distant father was dead, replaced now by a cold elder brother. 

His grandfather was obsessed with stealing him away. 

His brother Raymun was due to marry a sister to the awful Jeyne Ruttiger, and they would be separated regardless of either of their wishes. 

The only other person he felt might have loved him, he had realized did so because the Mother was cruel to her and had not given her children to love in his stead. 

His mother's faithful hound would soon be dead like her.

By the time he had a loose grasp on his reality, Bessa's chamber was blue-grey with morning light, and his father's funeral was due to take place within a few hours. 

* * *

Lord Moreland did not arrive explicitly to collect his youngest grandson. If Raymun had not told him the truth of the matter by the river, Alyn would have assumed Lord Moreland came for Raymun's wedding. 

Lord Moreland was a stout man with brown hair streaked with silver. He wore a beard to cover his double chin from where thick muscle had turned to fat over the years. The colors of House Moreland were modest brown and green, but Lord Moreland wore them with the same pride members of House Payne donned purple and gold. Lady Leonora was a woman of House Lefford whose blond hair had turned completely silver and who had lost much of her acclaimed beauty. She was said to have not spoken since her daughter's death; it was through her and her sister Jeyne Lefford, Donnel's mother, that the arrangement for him to squire for Lord Moreland came about. Accompanying his parents was Lady Elinor's eldest brother, Ser Daeron Moreland, along with his Vikary wife, their son, and their son's son who was about Cedric's age. 

"Uncle Daeron is looking to make betrothals at the wedding," Raymun explained. "He wants his son to remarry to one of Lord Ruttiger's nieces, and he'd like to see a match made for little Arthur as well. I think Lord Ruttiger is keen on it as well." 

Lord Ruttiger arrived with all his children, wed and unwed, and all their children as well. His heir Raynard had seven daughters about Alyn's age and younger. His second son Tywin had twins named for his namesake's own twin children. Cersei was about the right age for Arthur. Lady Jeyne and Tya's elder sisters Mya and Eleyne brought along their Stackspear husbands and children. There were ten between them, but they were either boys or too old for Arthur. However, there was a girl of three-and-ten named Cerenna who might suit Daeron's son. 

Lady Tya enjoyed one last Maiden's Day with her nieces in the castle sept, and the next day wed Raymun in the same sept. She wept her vows. 

Alyn had been just one year old when Irwyn wed Jeyne. He did not remember watching the ceremony from Bessa's arms, but he had heard much about it. Irwyn had been a fat and awkward squire of four-and-ten, and Jeyne had suffered terribly from acne and was taller than her husband. No one had expected the couple to produce a son before the first year of their marriage was out. Raymun and Tya seemed just as awkward as Irwyn and Jeyne had been described, if prettier. Alyn hoped his next nephew might treat him as an uncle ought to be treated. 

The wedding party was great fun. Alyn had only been to his cousins Jon and Daven's wedding the previous year, so he had little to compare it with as far as other weddings went, but there were jugglers, singers, and mummers. The feast was made up of ten courses and the servants dressed in their finest and most brightly colored garbs. Aside from the Morelands, Ruttigers, and Stackspears, members of Houses Bettley, Foote, Myatt, and Lorch attended, and that did not count their household knights, wards, and squires. House colors mingled in a pleasant motley as ale and words were passed around the great hall.

Lady Bessa danced with her father and brothers, and then Lord Foote and Ser Amory Lorch. The Ruttiger and Stackspear cousins played tag around the hall with Cedric and Arthur Moreland. Ladies clustered together to gossip and hear what ravens could not convey. Bethany Foote made herself cozy in the lap of Uncle Daeron's son, much to Daeron's chagrin. Lady Cerenna was left alone to swoon over the bard Wet Wayne. 

Once properly drunk, Ser Petyr Hill and Ser Tywin Greenfield were lathered in oil and wrestled in nothing but their smallclothes. Ser Petyr emerged the victor and thanked the back alleys of Lannisport for it. He lost in his next match against Elys Lantell, which caused another brawl for Jaime Greenfield had cheered for his fellow ward rather than his kin. Elys and Jaime disappeared soon after. Irwyn japed that they were off to do more wrestling in private, which disappointed Alyn as he wanted to see another match but was not allowed to follow after them. 

After the wrestling matches, the guests were treated to a show of trained animals. First dogs who walked like men and balanced balls on their noses, then a monkey from Sothoryos who danced and climbed agilely to the rafters of the hall, followed by a young bear who they'd put in a doublet and could coax into roaring what almost sounded like the Bear and the Maiden Fair, and finally a lion. Each member of the mummer's troop took turns sticking their heads in its mouth, and then had the beast jump through hoops, before at last allowing Lords and Ladies to tentatively pet the creature as it was walked around the room by a length of chain. Alyn and Cedric both asked to ride it, but were denied by Lady Bessa and Lady Jeyne respectively. 

Some dwarfs jousted with pigs after that. Then came pie and the oldest cask of Dornish Red in the castle was tapped. Alyn was not allowed a cup of his own, but Raymun let him sip from his--at least until their grandfather kicked up a fuss and forced a warm glass of goat's milk into his hand. As Alyn was finishing his milk, guests began chanting for the bedding, and Lady Leonora pulled him into her lap and kept him there. From his grandmother's lap, Alyn watched the Ruttiger ladies, Lady Bessa, and the women of Houses Foote, Myatt, and Lorch strip Raymun bare as the same was done to Lady Tya by virtually every man in the hall except the servants, entertainers, and Alyn. 

Alyn didn't think what Lady Leonora was doing was fair, since Cedric was tugging at Tya's skirt and she didn't seem to care. At his cousins' wedding last year, Daven's wife Jolly Jocelyn helped him tear off her own sleeve. "One, two, three!" They'd sang together and yanked at the fabric on the count of three. Alyn watched sullenly as his brother and new goodsister were stripped and carried away, leaving the great hall mostly empty and a great deal more boring. 

Wordlessly, Lady Leonora moved Alyn from her lap and started tugging him away. He quickly realized he was about to be put to bed. 

"Please, no, Grandmother!" Alyn pleaded, digging his heels in. It didn't work so well on smooth stone floors. " _Please_ , just a few more hours!" There was going to be mummer show for the guests while Raymun was upstairs with Lady Tya as soon as the ladies and men returned from hooting outside the chamber door. 

Lady Leonora did not pay Alyn any mind and continued dragging him away, upstairs, all the way to her and Lord Moreland's own bedchamber. Alyn did not fight her or her lady's maid as he was stripped down to his linen undershirt. Lady Leonora dismissed the maid with a hand gesture, leaving grandmother and grandson alone. The only sound in the chamber came from the crackling hearth. Alyn sat at the foot of the bed, kicking his legs boredly. He didn't see a point in trying to speak to Lady Leonora. She took her vow of silence very seriously. 

Lady Leonora sat by the fire for a long time, doing needlework. Alyn watched the fire mostly, but he watched her a little too from the corner of his eye. 

The closest thing to a portrait of Lady Elinor Alyn had ever known was a miniature inside a ring Hadwyn owned. Raymun had swiped it once to show Alyn when he was little, but he confessed it was made after Lady Elinor had died, based off of what Hadwyn could describe to the painter. To Alyn, Lady Leonora was like that miniature--she was an inexact representation of his dead Lady mother. 

Alyn stood and went over to a mirror. He looked at himself, and at Lady Leonora from the corner of his eye, and he tried to find some similarities. Raymun japed that there wasn't a drop of Lady Elinor in him, but Alyn didn't want that to be true. 

Lady Leonora had a high forehead, a petulant mouth, and heavy-lidded blue eyes. Her silver hair fell in ringlets. She was shaped like a young woman, despite her eight children. She was beautiful for her age, and her dully-colored ripped mourning gowns did not diminish that. Alyn pushed his hair out of his face. He had a rather standard forehead. His mouth was a thin line when he let it sit naturally on his round face. His eyes were only heavy with sleep, and a brown so deep it flirted with black. He let his hair fall, it was like a dark horse mane like his father and brothers'. Alyn was a boy; there was no point in comparing his body to a woman's. 

It saddened Alyn to think that perhaps Raymun hadn't been teasing. It angered Alyn to think Lord Moreland would still take him away from Blackbridge even though he did not resemble Lady Elinor in the slightest. If there was nothing of Elinor in him, then that left nothing but Donnel, and wouldn't that only serve as a sore reminder of the past? 

Alyn turned around and asked his grandmother, "Are you taking me because you love me, or because you hate me?" The silent old woman was not phased. She regarded him coolly as she set aside her needlework. For a moment, Alyn expected her to break her vow. But her cool blue eyes said everything her lips could have. 

It had nothing to do with Alyn, loving him or hating him, feeling _anything_ for him. This was about a girl she and Lord Moreland had loved, and a boy she and Lord Moreland hated. A daughter who could not mend a shirt for the life of her, or sing a hymn pleasing to the ear. A nephew who got a fatal child onto that daughter when he had already stolen her away from her parents long ago with other sons. Donnel was dead, but they could still violate his wishes for Alyn and take him far from his home and brothers as Donnel had taken Elinor. 

Alyn glared fiercely at Lady Leonora and flew towards the chamber door. He thrust it open with both arms. The thick wood collided with something on the other side. "Wah!" A man cried, and shoes scuffed the stone. Alyn craned his head around the door and watched Lord Moreland stumble backward. The drunk and overweight man could not manage to find his balance and kept stumbling further and further back down the hall. One step, two steps, three steps, teetering, the stairs. Alyn gasped and watched his grandfather tumble down the twisting staircase. He flinched at each heavy thud even as they grew fainter. A sickening crack echoed up the stairwell seconds later. 

Lady Leonora shoved past Alyn and hurried down the stairs. Alyn waited with baited breath for a groan, a sigh, _something_ to indicate life. Instead, Lady Leonora let out a terrible wail. " _Alyn!_ " 

It was not her grandson over whom she cried. Alyn squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to block it all out and fighting back tears at once. Then there were dozens upon dozens of hurried footsteps. Then shocked gasps and panic. Lady Leonora kept wailing. Alyn found his clothes and redressed.

As people began climbing up the stairs, Alyn stole around a corner to a little stairwell that led directly to the great hall. Near the bottom there was a window just a few feet above the ground; Alyn opened it quickly so the rusted hinges wouldn't squeak, climbed into the sill, and leaped outside, into a courtyard. Across the yard was the sept, and Alyn nearly fled inside, but instead clung to the shadows cast by the great hall in the moonlight. He found his way to the stables, but the stable boys were up and passing around a flagon by lantern light. 

Feeling hopeless, Alyn hid behind a pile of firewood and wept. Around him, the castle roared with life that his grandfather no longer possessed. Thanks to him. That thought had him crying harder. "Kinslayer, kinslayer, kinslayer." His mantra soon lost all meaning. It was the blubbering of the mad. Alyn was only silenced when he heard his brother's voice. "Alyn! Alyn!" It was not their grandfather's name that Raymun bellowed from a window. Alyn pressed himself into the dirt to remain unseen. Raymun went on for some time before suddenly stopping. His calls beckoned all but the intended, as the stable boys stumbled out of the stalls towards the castles, followed by the guards on the battlements and at the gate to the drawbridge abandoning their posts. When the last man left the drawbridge, Alyn climbed to his feet. 

He darted across the yard, over the bridge, and into the pitch black valley night.


	2. Maerie

She had burned her fingertips so often that they no longer left prints. Chandlers didn't make much coin or even barter for much, so Maerie and her brothers had made do with candles for toys for as long as she could recall. It would be stupid to treat a stick of wax as a doll, so often Maerie, Luke, and Maeron would dare each other to do things with the candles. Singed hair and burnt fingers were commonplace in their home and Mother kept a salve well-stocked. It tasted horrid according to Maeron, who'd once been dared by Maerie to hold a lit candle under his tongue for a full minute, and another time to outright to eat a whole spoonful by Luke. If their games hadn't burnt them, working alongside their father with hot wax had. 

"I want prints." Maerie said to her mother after spending some time contemplating her seared fingers. She meant more than her fingers, however. She also wanted a brilliantly patterned dress like a lady's. She wanted hands like a lady's more so. No burns, no callouses. She wanted a doll with horse hair and a porcelain face to play with. Then maybe she wouldn't burn her fingers so often. She said as much to her mother, and Mother frowned down at her like she was pitiable. 

"What brings this all about?" Mother asked her. Maerie didn't want to say because her mother's face made her feel stupid for having said anything at all. " _Maerie_." Mother spoke, and her will crumbled away like old bread. 

"Ser Raymun gave Tom's daughters a doll to share. A good and proper one like little ladies get. Penny showed it to me and let me feel the horse hair and the porcelain face and hands. It had a little dress, too, made of velvet with flowers stitched into it." Maerie explained. She wondered why Ser Raymun had seen it fit to befriend Tom the Barber across the way but not Maerie's family. At the very least why not both? She asked her mother if she knew. She confessed she didn't. 

"Who knows why highborns do anything, sweetling? Such fickle creatures they are." 

Maerie had been dissatisfied with that because plenty of people knew why highborns did anything. Every man in the village, from the miners to the smiths to the farmers to Father; they all complained about highborns and their reasons. Maerie wasn't stupid, she knew a thing or two, so she could tell when some people like her mother just didn't know anything at all. Of course, she didn't say that to Mother. She'd never sit the same again. Instead, Maerie went to find her brothers who would certainly agree with her. 

She used her usual method of tracking down the terrible twosome, working her way out from the house throughout the village and the surrounding farms, down to the river or towards the steep hills that they were forbidden to climb but often played at the feet of. Father said he had not seen Luke or Maeron since breakfast, and none of Tom's sons had seen them either. The smiths said their usual pests had not been around since yesterday, and the miners' wives shrugged their shoulders. The Baker said he'd seen them pass by earlier, heading towards the river. Maerie left the village by the road leading down to the riverside. Along the way, she encountered a shepherd girl with a lamb. She said she had seen them heading towards the Black Bridge. At that Maerie's heart began to hammer furiously at her ribs like the Smith wanted to forge swords from them.

The Black Bridge was the only way across the Tumblestone River for leagues, as the water was very deep and the current was hardly suitable for mules to pull barges along the shore let alone for a boat to cross by oars. Miners from other villages crossed the Black Bridge every day on their way to the mines up in the mountains looming at the back of Maerie's village, and every day Lord Donnel's men were there in purple and white cloaks to take a copper from each man on foot and two from each man mounted. Maerie had heard Father say that Lord Donnel made ten Silver Stags off the bridge in the morning and ten Silver Stags in the evening. Luke and Maeron couldn't have meant to cross it; they had not one penny between them. But then what else was there to do up that way? 

Maerie raced up the road until her lungs burned and then pushed on until her legs felt numb. She arrived at the Black Bridge fearing the worst, that her brothers had gotten up to some terrible mischief with the river or Lord Donnel's men. She found Luke and Maeron laughing jovially with tubby men in purple and white cloaks, and they had honest to the Gods swords.  _Swords._ And they were swinging them at each other!

"What're ya doin'?" Maerie screamed. Luke jumped and glowered at her while Maeron turned red and dropped his steel. The guardsmen burst out in greater fits of laughter at him and her. Maerie tried her best not to turn red like Maeron. "Well?" She demanded of her brothers, fists at her hips. Maeron, who was littler than her, had the good grace to look ashamed and bow his head, filling Maerie with a sense of pride. Luke, however, was fourteen and had no respect for nine-year-olds like his sister. 

"Come off it, Maerie!" He sneered. "Go back home and play with your dolls or somethin'!" 

Maerie turned redder, but with anger. "I haven't no dolls, Luke! You know that!"

"Or somethin', I said!" 

Maerie glared at her elder brother and threw herself forward at Maeron's abandoned sword in the dirt. Maeron cried foul but Maerie didn't care and brandished it at Luke. "Why do you get a sword to play with and I get stupid candles?" She spat. 

Luke rolled his eyes at her. "You don't even  _like_ swords and knights and all that. Why are you twisting yourself up like a snake over it?" 

"That's not what I'm mad about. Why do you get to play at knighthood, gettin' to touch real swords and everything, and I can't even have a proper doll? Why am I stuck with candles?"

Luke shrugged his pointy shoulders with a curdled milk expression. "Because we're smallfolk. Chandlers, candlemakers. We don't make enough to feed ourselves sometimes, so why would Father trade his wares for a doll for you, and why would mother take time out of her day to make ya one out of straw? You'd ruin it in a moon's turn. You'd burn it up after gettin' bored with it. Then you'd go back to your candles."

Maerie felt the beginnings of tears prick her eyes. "Can't we be something else then? Can't Father be a knight or a smith, or even just a barber?" 

Luke looked at her like she was stupid, as he was prone to do. "That's not how it works. Even Maeron knows that and he's a baby." Maeron glowed at the praise while Maerie glowered at the insult. 

"Then can't we at least befriend a lord like Tom's family across the road?" She demanded. Her demand was met by sudden bursts of laughter from Luke and the guardsmen. She and Maeron were utterly baffled by their reaction. Had she really said something terrifically stupid?

Blushing head to heel, Maerie asked her elder brother what was so funny. Luke hesitated even as he grinned and sent a look towards one of the guardsmen. They looked around, checking to see if the coast was clear. The guardsmen gestured for Maerie to step closer. She did and he crouched down to whisper in her ear. 

"Don't go blabbing around about this--Lord Donnel would be mighty sore with us for it--but there's a reason Ser Raymun is on such good terms with Tom the Barber and his family." Maerie felt the guardsman grin against her ear. "Lord Donnel was sticking it to his wife Mya some years ago. Lord Donnel used to have a woman in every village, it's said. Nowadays, he doesn't have any women. Hasn't been a bastard born in this valley as obvious as those neighbors of yours in about ten years." 

Maerie was confused. "So Mya was Lord Donnel's mistress?" She whispered back to the guardsmen. 

"One of." 

"And...some of her children might be...?" The guardsman nodded slowly like she was simple. He was lucky she was too caught up in a revelation to kick him swiftly between the legs. 

Maerie thought about Tom and Mya's six children. Ben was Tom's spitting image, there was no denying, but Beth was her mother's, so who could tell who her father was? And the same went for her two little sisters Cerys and Paget. But the youngest of the children, Penny and Willem, they didn't look like either Tom or Beth now that Maerie thought hard on it. Tom and Ben were tall and slim as straw, with straw hair too. Mya and her three elder daughters were round and freckled with brown curls. Penny and Willem had coal black hair, and black eyes, and high lordly cheeks. Penny and Willem looked enough like Ser Raymun to be his younger siblings. 

Maerie felt stupid for not having seen it all on her own. Luke then told her she was. She punched him for it. 

"Like you did either! They probably had to tell you, too!" She yelled, pointing at the guardsmen who were laughing at their squabbling. A pile soon formed where Luke had Maerie in a headlock while she pulled on his hair and Maeron crawled on his back, giggling madly. 

Later, as the siblings walked home, they came upon a well. They knew the farmer who owned it, so they had no qualms about pulling up a bucket of water to quench their thirsts and wipe off the dirt on their hands and faces. Luke went first, and then it was Maerie's turn. She took three satisfying gulps of cool water and then dipped her hands into what remained in the pail. When she went to wash her face, however, she found herself staring at her reflection in the shallow water. 

She had dirt brown hair and big brown eyes, but in the bucket they looked black. Her face was shaped like a heart, but who knew what lurked beneath her pudgy baby cheeks. Maerie was suddenly reminded of a time where a bard passing through the village on the way to the castle had mistaken her and Penny for sisters. He'd even sang them a verse about two pretty sister princesses, daughters of the Old King. Suddenly, there were little ripples in the pail, as if it were raining. 

"Are you crying?" Luke demanded. He sighed like she'd asked him to carry her on his back and pulled her away from the pail. "Come on. I said _come on_." He forced Maerie to look up and started wiping her tears away with his own sleeve. "Stop being a baby. You'll get me in trouble." 

"What's wrong?" Asked her much sweeter brother Maeron. Maerie told him. 

"Stupid." Luke called her again. "You're not a bastard. Mother isn't a whore like Mya." 

Maerie shoved him for that. "Two-face! You take the treats she offers when you play with Ben but then you turn around and call her a whore. I'm telling Mother! I'm telling Ben!" And then she and Luke were wrestling in the dirt again, cursing each other. Maeron didn't join in this time. Instead he screamed at Maerie and Luke to stop over and over again. His voice grew ever more helpless until at last he screeched wetly, "We're all gonna get in trouble!"

Maerie felt a warm grip on the back of her neck. The next thing she knew she was being hauled off Luke and Luke was being dragged oppositely by his armpits. They struggled against their new bonds, kicking and cursing, until they were silenced by cuffs to the sides of their heads. Maerie was dizzied for a moment. It took a few dull blinks for her head to clear. It was then that she saw who had separated her from Luke: Jon Farmer and his elder son. 

Jon gave Maerie and Luke a beating on their parents' behalf and then frog-marched them back into the village up to their front door. Mother answered at the third hard fist against the wood. She took one look at her elder children and she knew, as she always did. Mother thanked Jon and his son as pulled Maerie and Luke into the house by the scruffs of their necks. Maeron disappeared around the house. That was smart of him, but Maerie still hated him a little for his luck. 

Mother dragged Maerie and Luke over to the dinner table and made them sit on opposite sides, in what were typically hers and Father's seats. "Lay your hands flat on the table." She ordered them. The siblings relucantly obeyed. Mother then went over to the cabinet and pulled out a switch. It was long and thin with ten big thorns running the length. Maerie had counted them in horror when Luke had been forced to go pick it a fortnight earlier. Mother wielded it like a slaver would a whip. Maerie imagined at least that was how a slaver might wield a whip...

Mother pointed the limp branch at Luke. "Go on, tell me your side of things." Luke opened his mouth, looking pleased with himself. "And don't lie." Mother cut in. "Or else." Luke shut his fat mouth for a moment before opening it in a more thoughtful manner than before.

"Maerie was being a traitor." He began quietly, and Maerie kicked him under the table. "Ow!" He nearly reached across the table but was smart enough to look to Mother instead and say, "She kicked me, Mama! Give her the switch!" 

Maerie sent her Mother a beseeching look, suddenly seized by fear and feeling stupid for having lost her temper. Mother considered her for a moment and then told Luke to explain himself. Luke looked utterly betrayed. "She kicked me!" He repeated. One hard look from Mother, however, had him doing as he was bid. 

"She..." Luke looked down and Maerie's chest swelled with victory, knowing Luke was not fool enough to lie to their mother. "I told her something, said some things, and then she turned around and said she'd tell you." Luke explained in a murmur. 

Mother turned to Maerie and asked, "What did your brother say?" 

Maerie sat up straight, stuck out her chin, and answered, "He told me that Ser Raymun was only friends with Tom and them across the road because Willem and Penny are really Lord Donnel's bastards. And then he called Mya a whore behind her back when he's happy to act like Ben's friend and take treats from Mya and be kindly to her to her face." 

The switch came down hard on Luke's hands. "You told her about it!" Mother boomed as Luke howled in pain. As he whimpered, she ranted. "And I suppose Maeron knows now as well! Luke, of all the things you could have told her--of all the curse words and sins in the world--you choose to tell her our neighbor is a whore and call her children bastards! What if she had gone and told Penny, or Willem, or asked Tom and Mya about it? Do you want to see Mya beaten, boy? _Do you?_ " Mother went to fetch Father then from his workshop. When they returned, they were both red in the face and Luke was terrified. Maerie was scared on his behalf. Her victory sat bitterly on her tongue as she was sent into the next room. 

Their house was made up of two rooms. One big room and one small room. The big room had a hearth in the middle with a few cabinets on the walls and a table for eating with just enough chairs for them to all sit. The floor was tightly packed dirt and strewn straw. They had a curtain rather than door between that room and the small room. The next room was just big enough for them to each sleep and be able to come and go to make water in the night without tripping over one another. The floor was still dirt and straw. The walls were hung with animals skins to keep the warmth in. Deer and rabbit for the most part. Mother and Father shared a straw mattress with woolen blankets while Luke slept on the floor on a pallet. Maerie and Maeron shared a cot.

Maerie curled up on the cot and tried to sleep; tried not to hear her parents tear into her brother more like, but still she was tired after so much fighting and sleep sounded better than listening to Luke whimper. She couldn't, however. The best Maerie could do was think of something besides what she'd helped condemn her brother to. Like what he had told her.

Luke may have called her stupid every day, but Maerie never would have been fool enough to tell Willem or Penny what he had told her, or ask Tom and Mya about it. Except...maybe someday, when they were older. Penny and Willem deserved to know, if they didn't already. Did they know? Maerie didn't think so, as Willem had a fat mouth and would have bragged to her that his true father was a lord. Maeron and Luke and her parents as well in quick succession. Penny was much quieter. The sweet silences of the village sept and dinner prayers came easily to her in a way they didn't to other children. Still, she would have told Maerie if she knew. Likely in tears, as she loved her father Tom very much. It would hurt her very much that he wasn't her true father. 

With that thought, Maerie resolved never to be the one to tell her the truth. If someone else ever did, then she'd play the fool. She could never hurt the closest thing she had to a sister like that. 

With that thought, Maerie was drawn back to her dark thoughts by the well. Her family was too poor for a mirror, so instead she closed her eyes and tried to see herself as she was, rather than how she imagined herself when playing Jenny of Oldstones with her brothers, Willem, and Penny. She relinquished her flower crown, disrobed of her silky gown and donned the roughspun dress and dirty, sleeveless tunic of her reality. Her dark hair was not raven black that shone blue in the proper light, but rather a wet earth color. Her eyes were not golden, but rather nut-brown. Her heart-shaped face went from ivory to dark with a farmer's tan and the pleasantly plump physique she'd crafted for herself thinned down to a candlestick. 

Feeling very low, Maerie compared the image in her head to her memories of Penny at each angle. As she did, it became ever more apparent that Penny had more than drop of highborn blood in her. From her high highborn cheekbones to her dainty arms and legs. If you gave her a proper bath and a nice dress, she'd look like a little lady. As Maerie compared the two of them, it became ever more apparent that that bard had been a liar. 

Around the time Maerie came to this conclusion, Luke pushed past the curtain into the room. He looked every bit as low on himself as her. He collapsed onto his pallet across the room from the cot and curled onto his side. Maerie nearly asked how it had gone, but she knew he'd only call her stupid for asking when she had heard every bit of it through the wall. Instead, Maerie pretended she was asleep and eventually stopped pretending to the sound of Luke crying. 

* * *

The next day, Mother kept Maerie in the house to help mend some clothes. Really, it was to explain things to her for herself, as she didn't want Luke filling her head with "wicked whispers". 

"You've heard of Lady Elinor, haven't you?" Mother started off.

Maerie bowed her head and shook it, feeling awkward. Mother certainly sounded it. 

"She was Lord Donnel's wife, our Lady. She and Lord Donnel came here when I was about your age, some two years after our previous lord had died. He was Lord Donnel's uncle, not his father, you see, and Ser Ilyn ought to have come back from serving the Hand to claim his father's lands but never did and said he wouldn't. So Lord Willem, up the river at Oar's Rest, saw it fit to give the castle and all these lands surrounding it to his second son." 

"What does that got to do with anything?" Maerie asked quietly. It sounded like a bunch of unimportant stuff when it came down to it. Maerie shrank, feeling her mother's glower. 

"You ought to have some idea of how things got to the way they did. You see, sweetling, Lord Donnel had not been meant for Lady Elinor. She had been betrothed to some Riverlander lord. But he was old and foul and she and Lord Donnel were in love--or at least thought themselves to be. Anyhow, Lady Elinor's father didn't take kindly to his squire getting a bastard on his daughter, so he let them wed and then sent them back to Oar's Rest. Lord Willem didn't punish his son for making so much trouble as he should have, however. Instead, he gave him a castle." Mother explained with such disdain in her voice that Maerie imagined she wished she could lecture Lord Donnel's father on how to properly punish a child. Maybe one day she would if they ascended to the same heaven. 

"So Lord Donnel was never punished for getting a bastard on a girl, so he went on doing it like a thief would go on stealing if you didn't chop off their hand?" Asked Maerie.

Mother nodded sagely. "Exactly, sweetling." 

"And that's what happened," She went on. "Lady Elinor gave Lord Donnel two more boys after Ser Hadwyn, but then was told she could have no more at the risk of her own life. I remember it. I had just flowered and was dreaming of my future babes," She paused briefly to stroke Maerie's cheek with a nostalgic smile. Her expression darkened quickly. "And then I was hearing that our dear Lady Elinor nearly died abed with her latest son. Just her third child, just twenty years old, and she was ruined forever." Mother shook her head, as if to clear it of rubbish. "Lord Donnel announced publicly, right in the village square, that he'd leave his wife be to preserve her life, and yet also continue to love her just as fiercely, even when her body became a stranger to him. We all applauded him like some great tourney knight for it.

"It soon became the subject of many rumors of how he performed such a feat, especially with such a beautiful wife. It started with talk of the scullery maids at the castle. Just talk, what they passed along to friends and sisters in the surrounding villages and farms. Then some maids started leaving the castle and very quickly making husbands of farmers and miners. And even quicker having their babes." Mother smiled sardonically. "Ever seen a fat baby born in six months, sweetling? Because I saw an awful lot of those when I was Luke's age." Maerie couldn't help but giggle. 

"Yes, we thought it funny as well...But then it wasn't just scullery maids at the castle." Mother and daughter suddenly sobered. Their needlework now sat forgotten in their laps. "Lord Donnel very soon had a mistress in every village. Some were well-known, like a woman named Jenny who lived up in the hills. Some were much better kept secrets, at least until the babes were born. I feel Tom only remains oblivious by his own will, and that's all I'll say on that matter. But Maerie," Mother leveled Maerie with a grave look. "Let this be a lesson to you about highborn boys and lowborn girls." 

"What do you mean, Mama?" Maerie asked when her mother didn't go on. Mother seemed to have expected Maerie to grasp it on her own, but Maerie had no idea what  _it_ was. Mother seemed disappointed in her for it which made Maerie glad Luke wasn't around. 

"You're too sweet." Mother whispered, pressing a kiss to Maerie's temple. "Oh sweet Mother and Father, how do I..." Mother heaved a great sigh. "You'll understand all on your own soon enough, dear, so all you need to know for now is that highborn boys-- _all_ boys, really--are no good. But especially highborn boys! They have got ideas that they can do anything they want, and Maerie, they really can. So the best you can do is stay out of their way and try not to catch their eye. If you do, they'll ruin you inside and out and leave ya with nothing but...but Pennys and Willems of your own, but with no Tom to support ya and turn a blind eye. Do you understand?" 

Though she barely did, Maerie nodded her head. Mother was pleased at it, and they returned to their mending. Soon, Mother began to hum a hymn. Maerie recognized it easily; it was about the Maiden's virtue and purity and how she was as fierce as the Warrior in defending it from the petty mitts of men. Maerie didn't see how it was so valiant to turn up one's nose at a man and his mitts. Boys were all either silly or vile or both. 

* * *

Father foretold the changing of the seasons long before the raven flew overhead towards Blackbridge Castle. He had a penchant for it, as Jon Farmer was a good friend and knew by nature when winter, spring, summer, and autumn were coming without fail. Really, the highborns were always the last to know when the seasons were changing. Father said that the farmers of the Reach were likely the first to know, and when they went into Oldtown to sell their wares, they would tell the maesters of the Citadel, who would take all the credit and send out the ravens. Mother said not to listen to Father, though, because he just liked to believe that books didn't mean much because he couldn't read them. Mother, on the other hand, took great pride in being able to read. 

She'd spent a summer in a motherhouse downriver when her parents died. There she had been taught to read using the Seven-Pointed Star. She left after reading it cover to cover and returned to their village. She'd married Father soon after and had Luke. Neither father or son ever took much interest in letters and Mother had never even tried with Maerie and Maeron. It remained Mother's singular glory. 

When Maerie saw the raven fly over their house towards the castle, she wanted for glory. 

Since her talk with her mother, she'd started thinking there was a rather easy way to get it. Maerie was resolved now to become a septa. As soon as she was old enough, she'd go off to a motherhouse and learn to read the Seven-Pointed Star like her mother did. Only she wouldn't leave afterwards. Instead, she'd go to Oldtown and live at the Starry Sept with other septas and septons, and she'd make friends with the maesters of the Citadel. She had heard Oldtown was crawling with them. They'd teach her things that they learned from that great library of theirs, and maybe one day they'd sneak her inside. She might also befriend a sailor or two and hear of their exotic adventures. It was a brilliant plan that no one, not even Luke, could fault her for. 

"Can I come along?" Penny had asked when Maerie told her of her plans. 

"Of course." Maerie had answered. It had been obvious to her from the start that Penny would join her, as Penny loved the Seven far more than Maerie. Thus, if Maerie was to become a septa, Penny must as well. It was all rather obvious. Maerie believed the maesters called it mathematics. 

"Promise?" Penny had asked in that sweet, small voice of hers. 

"Of course." Maerie had repeated, wrapping her pinkie around Penny's. 

The afternoon that they spotted the raven, Penny and Maerie watched it until it disappeared into a tower of Blackbridge castle in the distance. The girls exchanged broad smiles and then wordlessly took off running in the direction of the village sept, feeling the same want for glory. 

The sept was the prettiest, newest building in their village. Maerie's mother had told her that Lady Elinor had commissioned it early on in her reign. The old sept had been falling apart. The walls only stayed up because they leaned on one another for support, and the roof was gone in many places. When it rained, the charcoal drawings of the seven on the walls were washed away, and the wooden floor buckled and began to rot. Poor Septon Dickon had caught one chill after another, as his bed was always damp. His only copy of the Seven-Pointed Star was entirely destroyed by the time construction on the new sept began. The new sept had brick walls each painted with a color of the Seven, and stain-glass windows depicting the crowning of Hugor of the Hill. The roof was shingled with brown tile and topped by a golden star. The inside of the sept was made up of dark wood and there were enough chairs for everyone in town to sit, and those chairs had horse-hair cushions.

There were statues of the Seven rather than charcoal drawings on the walls. They were naked wooden bodies, clothed in fabrics purchased and embroidered by Lady Elinor herself and her lady's maid. The clothes were rather dirty now, but still fabulous compared to the villagers' shabby tunics. The Father wore a white doublet with gold stitching and a cloak of purple satin. Rings and gems were painted onto his fingers and his eyes and hair were charcoal black with chalk for whites and grey streaks. The Mother donned a gown of green silk with blue flowers. Her hair was concealed by a cowl and a gentle, loving smile was painted on her face. In her arms was a bundled up wool blanket meant to be a babe at her breast. The Warrior was armed with a dented breast plate and chain mail and riding leathers. The helm made it so his statue never needed the paint touched up. The Maiden was draped with blue silk and Myrish lace. Under her veil, dark hair, closed eyes, and plump red lips could be seen. The Crone was wrapped in grey wool head to toe. An old oil lamp hang on one of her outstretched wooden arms. The Smith wore a leather smock and was otherwise naked. There was probably a reason why he had such a long and scruffy beard. The Stranger was covered by black cloth so one could only make out the rough shape of a person. Sometimes Septon Dickon would play a joke on the villagers and move the statue into his bedchamber and hide beneath the black cloth himself to scare people when they came to pray.

Maerie and Penny checked the Stranger first thing when they entered the sept, calling out to anyone underneath that they'd be in for it if they were meant to scare these future brides of the Father. This time Septon Dickon wasn't under the black cloth. He emerged from his tiny room adjoined to the rest of the sept with a smile on his face. "Come to pray again, children? Or come to listen?"

"To listen." Maerie and Penny chorused. They'd taken to visiting Septon Dickon to hear stories from the Seven-Pointed Star. Stories not usually told by their parents or at services, but stories they ought to know if they planned to become septas someday.

Septon Dickon nodded and went over to the pedestal on which sat their village's Seven-Pointed Star. It was fine and new, another gift from Lady Elinor. "Let's see, let's see, let's see," Septon Dickon murmured as he flipped through the pages. While he did so Maerie and Penny made themselves comfortable on some chairs.

"Have you girls heard of Hugo, the youngest son of Hugor of the Hill?" Septon Dickon asked them. 

"And his killing a lion with an iron hide with his bare hands, too," Maerie replied. 

"Hm...Megga the Obstinate then?" The septon went on. 

Penny whimpered at the very mention. "Not again, please. I still nightmare about those crows and her clawed and bloody face." 

Septon Dickon measured Penny with sympathetic eyes and went on turning pages in the holy book. "Renaya and the Rainbow might soothe your nerves." He spoke cautiously. 

Maerie and Penny readily agreed. It was their favorite story from the Maiden's Book. Septon Dickon cleared his throat and began to read from the holy book: 

"Seven score following the death of King Hugor of the Hill, the seventh son of the seventh son of his body took his father's throne and became of a grasping nature, having been corrupted by the sinister exotic gods of his mother Oa. This dissenter of Hugor's bloodline waged war on his kin, killing brothers, cousins, and uncles without consideration of the Mother. Mychel the Magnificent was the first to be felled in the field defending his kingdom against his traitorous kin. Mychel took to the field of battle in the shadow of the grey mountains on the golden plains with five thousand men. He armed each farmer in his land and their boys with an axe and dirk. Each man bore a seven-pointed star shield, and the vanguard bore the holy star as scars on their foreheads. Mychel's traitorous cousin arrived on the field of battle midday. Seven hours late. Furious, Mychel bellowed across the field, 'Coward! Seven hours for seven affronted gods! Have you not one drop of honorable blood left to even keep the time? Are we not kin in any way still?' His cousin did not reply. Nor he did he allow himself to be beckoned for by his anointed name by his once dear cousin. Mychel watched as his cousin raised his left arm and splayed his fingers beseechingly to the sky. Mychel smiled and roared, 'Pleading for forgiveness? Surrendering? Come for peace, cousin?' One last time, he went unanswered. His cousin let his arm sink to his side as a tidal wave of arrows rose up from the grey mountains and descended upon Mychel and his army. The first wave felled half the army. The second felled a third of those who remained. The enemy's charge wiped out the remainder, and Mychel's throat was slit ear to ear by a man of his cousin's guard.

"Mychel's brothers Jonothor and Waldor soon followed in a quest for vengeance, and his youngest brother Judor quickly followed their demises by delivering Mychel's throne to its usurper. Thereafter, Judor and his traitorous cousin were stripped of the names anointed to them at birth and became known simply as the Jealous One and his First Rat. Together, they ravaged the kingdoms of Hugor's sons and grandsons. Cities were sacked, kin slain, and wives were made of maiden cousins and widowed good-sisters by the Jealous One and his growing horde of rats. A pestilence followed the Jealous One's army from kingdom to kingdom, sweeping over those seemingly spared by this dastardly fiend's rampage of greed. Fields turned to dust, rivers ran red with blood from the bodies of the fallen and rust from the weapons of the fallen, and darkness was cast over the land, the smoke of funeral pyres and burning cities persisted the air so terribly." 

Maerie and Penny listened to it all in a hush, seeing and hearing and feeling every bit of what Septon Dickon described. He had that sort of storyteller voice that no bard or puppeteer or parent could ever hope to best. He spoke with such drama and gravity at once that if Maerie did not already know the ending, she might have wept with terror as she had the first time. She and Penny still clung to one another. 

"The Seven Who Are One were infuriated in equal parts. The Father raged at the injustice dealt out by the Jealous One to his own kin at every turn. In order to balance the scales of justice, misfortune soon took hold of every encampment of rats. Campfires became raging infernos, food turned foul over night, and water was always a scarcity. The Mother raged at the merciless nature of the Jealous One's army and wept angry tears at the babes torn from their mothers' breasts only to be slaughtered by the Jealous One in the field. Her tears created terrible typhoons that ravaged the kingdoms on the coast and the Jealous One's army with them. The Warrior mourned Mychel the Magnificent with a vengeance, descending from the heavens to personally slaughter the Jealous One's vanguard and duel with the exotic warrior god who had corrupted the kin of Hugor. The Maiden wailed and wept for the daughters and granddaughters of Hugor who were deprived of their innocence by the Jealous One and his Rats. She inflicted flocks of hungry birds upon the Jealous One's camps, tearing out the eyes of the princesses' husbands so they at least could not look upon their beautiful faces. The Crone..." 

Septon Dickon's lyrical voice became a far-off thing for Maerie as her thoughts were consumed by the Maiden, something that was becoming a common happening for her as of late. If the Maiden hated to see a girl defiled, Maerie thought, then why had she let Lord Donnel go around putting bastards in lowborn girls' bellies? Where had her hungry birds been then? Where are they when highborn boys are ruining lowborn girls like Mother said they so often do? Or did the Maiden only care about Hugor's princesses, Maerie wondered sullenly. 

"Something the matter, Maerie?" Asked Septon Dickon, ripping her away from his dark thoughts. 

"Nothing is the matter." Maerie answered quietly. She didn't want to meet Septon Dickon's eye so she turned her head and found herself face to face with the Maiden. Her blood red lips were vivid even behind her veil and begged questions. Maerie found that something was very much the matter and she could not contain herself. Questions and demands spilled out of her mouth without her consent. Blasphemy echoed throughout the sept. Septon Dickon and Penny were taken aback. 

None of them spoke for a long time as Maerie caught her breath as she had let out all her questions in one. No one said anything, even about Penny's wet eyes. When she caught her breath at last, Maerie flushed a deep crimson and could not bare to look at anything. However, she once again ended up face-to-face with the Maiden, and that was even more unbearable. But what else could she do except look upon her friend's tearful face and wonder if she knew she was a bastard now?

"Your family ought to have let those vicious rumors die with the previous generation as I had thought this whole valley had silently agreed." Septon Dickon finally spoke. Maerie felt angry on her parents' behalf, but also shame that they hadn't done just that. They could have just called Luke a liar; Maerie may have believed them and no one could fault them for having tried. "Penny," Septon Dickon said to her friend. "Go home, dear. This is a discussion for two souls." Maerie heard Penny leave on hurried feet and with a slammed door.  _She knows, she knows, she knows_ , Maerie thought, feeling utterly vile. 

"Now, Maerie," Septon Dickon began once Penny was gone. "Tell me how you came about this terrible knowledge." Maerie did, her eyes trained on the Maiden and fiddling her fingers in her lap. With each word past her lips, she grew more and more embarrassed. At the end of the her story, that being the talk with her Mother, Septon Dickon embraced Maerie. "Poor dear." He whispered in her ear. "No wonder you wish to become a septa." 

That confused Maerie. What did Lord Donnel have to do with her becoming a septa? Nothing, she knew. Nothing at all. Before she could ask where Septon Dickon got such an idea that Lord Donnel had made her want to become a septa, Septon Dickon ended their embrace and bestowed upon her a pitying smile that left Maerie dumbstruck. What had she done to deserve such a look? 

"The Maiden wishes she could protect all little girls from men as laden with lust as Lord Donnel, but she simply cannot, dear. For where would the challenge be for girls such as yourself? It would be like rewarding a man whose hands have always been bound behind his back for not stealing. Without the means of committing sin, why reward those who do not commit it?" Septon Dickon explained carefully, as if giving instructions to a task. Maerie felt sick at the mention of sin. 

"Will Mya go to the Hell of Whores?" She inquired tentatively. There were seven hells for men to fear, one for each offended god. The Hell of Cravens for the Warrior, the Hell of Ruiners for the Smith, the Hell of the Blind for the Crone, and so on. It was the Hell of Whores feared by girls like Maerie and Penny. It was a violent, never-ending wind-storm of sharp blades and naked bodies colliding into one another so forcefully that teeth were knocked from skulls and ribs cracked and limbs torn off. Demons circled the tornado ravenously, snatching up the bloody bodies of sinners to fornicate with before tossing them back into the spiral of madness and flesh. One could not distinguish the howling of the storm from that of the damned. 

Septon Dickon hesitated to answer, and Maerie knew. "That's not fair!" She shrieked. "Mother said she couldn't have said no, not really, so it shouldn't count!"

Septon Dickon covered her mouth with his wrinkled hand. "Foolish girl! Do you accuse our lord of rape so boldly?" 

Maerie clawed his hand away, furious. "Of course I do! Why wouldn't I? Who wouldn't? What makes them so much better than us that they can get away such terrible things?" 

Septon Dickon started on some nonsense about the Gods anointing Kings and Kings raising special men to higher stations such as knighthood and lordship, stations that God-loving and God-loving folk ought to respect, but Maerie would hear nothing of it. Maerie didn't know a lot of things. But she knew when someone didn't know anything. She marched out of the sept feeling righteous. 

* * *

Over the course of the next several months, Maerie became rather adept at two things. Avoiding Septon Dickon, and avoiding Penny.  

The first was very difficult, as her parents refused to humor her skipping services. Maerie had asked to be allowed to stay home while her family went just a few days after the incident. Mother had given her a warning look for so much as asking. Maerie was forced to take extreme measures after that: she bolted out the front door and barreled towards the thicket of trees down by the river. Her father had dashed after her, and then Luke after Mother swatted him for cackling. Maerie found her way up a tree, just out of Father's reach. When he sent Luke up after her, she moved to a thinner branch that he didn't dare try and climb on. Her older brother found the extra inches and muscles he'd been so proud of working against him. Eventually, Father and Luke gave up and went to the sept with Mother and Maeron without her. She only regretted the throttling a little. It was worth the pride she felt. 

The next week, Maerie tried to feign illness. Sadly, her parents were no fools and still seething from last week. She tried to bolt out the door again but Luke stood in her way, the traitor. Mother and Father dragged her to the sept, each with one of her wrists in a tight grip. They only let her go once they were inside and the doors were closed. Thanks to her struggling, they were the last to arrive and all the other villagers were seated and had fallen into a hush, awaiting Septon Dickon's emergence from his personal chamber. They must have thought she wouldn't have the gull to run out on the service. They were wrong. The second her parents loosened their grips on her wrists, Maerie flung herself out the sept's doors and took off running. When she heard no one follow after her after all the gasps and shouting, Maerie decided not to bother fleeing down the river and instead went home to await her beating. 

This repeated week after week. Each time Mother and Father thought they had her cornered, Maerie would surprise them and manage to squirm her way out of attending services in the process. Mother and Father were mortified, not to mention perplexed that the beatings hadn't dissuaded her foolishness. Maerie didn't care. Her pride mattered more to her than some bruises, and she refused to worship Gods so stupid they would send Mya to Hell. Maybe her parents would have agreed with her, might have been proud of her, if they had known. But no doubt they would be furious to know what she had let the secret slip to Penny as well as Septon Dickon. 

In the meantime, Mother and Father were at a loss. Their neighbors comforted them by saying that many children went through such phases. "My Juniper went through a period like yours. When she was older than Maerie is now, but still. Thought herself above paying her respects to the Seven. Now she's as pious as can be." Maerie overheard the Baker's wife say to her mother. The Goldsmiths with children told Father similar stories. One grizzled old smith even gifted them with a bit of advice. "Let her. The more you fight her, the worse she'll be about it. Before long she'll realize her own folly and return willingly." So they did. Maerie stopped having to run away, and so did the beatings and the disapproving looks. The only thing that started was Luke complaining about having to go when " _Septa Maerie_ over here doesn't." 

The second thing was difficult in unique ways. Maerie never had to worry about holy days, but every other day of the week was a trial. What with Tom's family being just across the road. The first day after the incident, Willem knocked on their door and asked Maerie and Maeron to come out and play. Usually Penny did that as Willem would already be at it. Maeron asked him why she hadn't done it that day. "Aw, she's being stupid." Willem answered. "Are ya comin'?" 

Maerie lied that she felt ill while Maeron went ahead. Willem didn't seem to care much except to wish her well before running off. The next day it was the same, and the day after that was the first service she skipped. The next day after that, Willem came to their door with a worried expression. Her parents had told everyone she had not been there because she was ill. Maerie said it was true, and for the week after that Willem showed up every day with wild flowers wishing her to get better. He'd curse Penny to kingdom come while he was at it. "I don't see how she can be so cruel. She ought to visit you in case you..." Willem burst out into tears then and Mother sent him home. The day after that was the day Maerie ran out of the sept, and he must have figured out she hadn't been sick because he didn't come to ask either her or Maeron out to play after that. 

Willem didn't speak to Maerie, Maeron, or Luke at all after that until the day after the black banners came down the hill. 

Weeks earlier, Lord Donnel had rode off with his sons, wards, and knights to go hunting before winter set in. He returned in a wagon, his body hidden under animal furs. The whole village stopped to watch the wagon stutter down the hillside after the rest of the hunting party. At the time, they hadn't known who had died. Except that it must not have been Lord Donnel. His son had looked that much like him from afar with his tell-tale cloak and beloved horse. Word didn't break until the next day when a herald rode over the castle's drawbridge with two knights into the village square at noon. 

"Hear ye, hear ye. I bring sad tidings from Blackbridge Castle. Lord Donnel Payne has died while away. His son Hadwyn returns as Lord of the Blackbridge. He promises to be a good lord to you like his father before him..." The herald went on for some time. Maerie didn't listen, thinking good riddance. Far more interesting to her were the guests of Tom's family who had left earlier that morning, heading towards the castle. She had seen a boy sitting in a windowsill, who'd then jumped out when Ser Raymun of all people sneaked up behind him. Up until then, Maerie had thought the boy was Willem. After that, she noticed his stockings and the quality of his tunic. Even dirty, one could tell that the fabric was finer than any peasant's tunic. The boy was highborn, no doubt. Alyn Payne, she realized quickly, Lord Donnel's youngest son. 

Maerie had seen him before, of course. Usually on a pony, trotting after Raymun towards the river. Father said they were fishing, so on those days Father forbade Luke from taking a pole down to the river as well. Though Luke rarely fished. He thought it dull. Maerie had never seen Alyn stay the night in the village before. From all she had heard, Lord Donnel was very protective of his littlest boy. Worse than Mother was about Maeron, even. 

But Lord Donnel was dead. That explained it. 

After the herald moved on to the next village, Penny and Willem crossed the road for the first time in weeks. Penny looked like her porcelain doll, neither sad nor angry nor happy. Willem's dark eyes were brimming with tears. He threw his arms around Maerie as soon as he could and hid his face in the crook of her neck. Maerie cradled him awkwardly and silently asked Penny what was the matter. Surely Willem could not be mourning Lord Donnel. He didn't know he was his father, nor did Lord Donnel ever act as a father to him. Penny answered Maerie's questioning look with a flash of anger in her dark eyes. 

"He looked like me." Willem whimpered. 

"Who did?" Maerie asked, hopelessly confused. The crofter's sons next-door started sending them funny looks, and the smith's apprentice across the road laughed loud enough to be heard over the hammers. Maerie flushed with embarrassment and pushed Willem off her. 

He was a sight with his runny nose and red eyes. He was blubbering too hard to answer her no matter how he tried. 

"Why is he so upset?" Maerie dared to ask Penny. 

Her friend--were they even still that--answered begrudgingly. "Ser Raymun brought his little brother to us last night, and we broke our fast with him this morning. It was awful to see them sitting across from one another." Penny scowled into the distance, towards the castle. "And he didn't even have the good grace to notice." 

Maerie felt a rush of fear course through her veins like the strong current of the Tumblestone. "Is your mother all right?" If Willem had noticed, surely Tom had. Despite herself, Maerie thought back to all the stories in the Maiden Book of the Seven-Pointed Star about adulterous women. Megga the Obstinate who rebelled against her marriage by sharing herself with her husband's brothers, and her bastard daughters after her. Renaya's poisonous sister Jenaya who wed the Jealous One while still wed to her cousin King Terrance. Tabitha of Temperance who was corrupted by a Myrish temptress after her husband's death. Megga's beautiful face had been torn off by the Mother's doves for killing her only child by her husband in the womb. Jenaya had been beaten by King Terrance nearly to death once returned to him by Renaya and the Warrior, and then forced to walk naked and bare-foot back to his kingdom in the first penance walk. Tabitha's lover was burned before her eyes by her father and brothers, and then was given to a septon to be cleansed of her immoral lusts with baths of scalding holy oil. What would Tom do to his adulterous wife, even though she had little choice?

Willem rubbed away the tears in his confused eyes. "Of course she is." He hiccuped, leaving Maerie to wonder if Tom was a fool. 

She asked her Mother about it later that afternoon when they were left along to prepare supper. She did her best to frame it as harmless curiosity and not let on about Penny and Willem knowing. "Mother, you saw Alyn Payne across the road this morning, yes?" She asked as she chopped leaks beside her mother. 

"Yes." Mother answered simply. 

Maerie let it sit for a moment. "He looked an awful lot like Willem." 

Mother didn't reply at first. "Yes." She eventually agreed. "I suppose he did." 

"How did Tom not notice? Isn't Olyvar supposed to be the village idiot?" Maerie tried to joke.

Mother sent her a looker sharper than the knife in her hand. "He noticed a long time ago, Maerie." 

Maerie's surprise must have been obvious, because she did not need to ask her next question for it to be answered. "He just loves Mya that much, sweetling." 

* * *

When Maiden Day came, Mother and Father gave up on letting Maerie's phase take it's course. "We won't have those fools thinking you've been sullied by some passing bard with demonic tastes. You will go to the sept with Penny and her sisters. You will light a candle before the Maiden's alter. And you will sing a pretty little hymn with all the other maidens in the word." Father shouted as clawed at Maerie in her hiding spot under his and Mother's straw bed. 

"No!" Maerie shouted back, pressing herself back against the wall, as far from her father's clawing hand as she could be. "I won't have anything to do with something so stupid. Everyone knows Pate Dyer's daughters aren't maidens and yet they still go there every year to sing. It's stupid and doesn't mean anything!" 

Father made an indignant noise and Mother gasped in horror. Wherever Luke was in the room, Maerie knew he was biting back laughter. 

Father eventually just moved the mattress and hauled her into the main room by her ankles. He and Luke held her down in a chair while Mother scrubbed her face  and braided her hair. Then they forced her out of her tunic and dress and into her new set. Every few years, Mother and Father got her a new dress and tunic. They gave them to her on Maiden's Day so she'd look fresh and pretty for it, even if the clothes were often too big for her, and then leave her in them for a year or two to grow into. The hems of her old set had been inching closer and closer to her knee as of late. When she was clean and dressed, Mother shoved her out the door into Beth and Cerys. Penny's elder sisters seized her arms and started dragging her towards the sept with only a chipper good morning to her family. Penny and Paget trailed after them dutifully. 

The only good thing about Maiden's Day was that not even Septon Dickon was allowed inside the sept, so Maerie managed to avoid him after all. Still, it hurt her pride to enter the sept once more and be forced to spend the whole of a day there, lighting candles, singing, and pretending to pray. There was no Septa to keep watch over them, however, so occasionally the girls would lapse into chatter. That made things a bit more bearable. 

Older girls like Beth and Cerys spoke of boys. Beth was to wed a farm boy soon, so this would be her last Maiden's Day. Something she was endlessly teased about. Though her closest friends consoled her that by next year she'd likely be celebrating the Mother's Day. Beth said she hoped so and prayed aloud for many, many sons. Maerie thought it rather ridiculous. All the younger girls did. 

"How can you stand boys?" Penny demanded. "They're all so crass and mean. Brothers are bad enough. So why take a husband?" Her sisters and the older girls only laughed at her. "This is why I'm becoming a septa as soon as I bleed." She grumbled to Maerie. "I've got to do it before my brain turns to mush and I start liking boys." 

"I won't let you go down that dark path," Maerie assured her friend. 

"Neither will I let you," Penny promised. 

The grin Maerie had been wearing up until that point died. "You don't have to do that." She whispered, careful of the other girls. 

"Why not?" Penny asked, and then she must have remembered by the way her eyes lit up. "Oh..." Penny's eyes fell to her feet. "So, we won't be becoming septas together." 

Maerie shook her head. 

"Then what are you going to do?" Penny asked with a tilt of her head. "I know you weren't doing it for the Father or the Maiden. But you wanted to be more than a chandler's daughter. What will you do instead?" 

Maerie shrugged her shoulders, honestly at a loss. "I'll think of something." 

Penny obviously didn't believe Maerie anymore than she believed herself. "Are you sure you can't just grit your teeth and pretend?" She asked. "I know you don't like the Seven much anymore. But what else are you going to do? The Citadel won't take a girl, and if you don't become a septa your father will one day find you a husband." Penny cast her eyes around the sept before leaning in close to whisper right in Maerie's ear. "I heard my father talking to yours. About you maybe marrying Willem someday." 

Maerie gagged so loudly a nearby girl shrieked and jumped away. "Go outside if you're going to get sick, Maerie!" The girl shouted. 

"Yeah, Maerie." Other girls chorused. Seeing her opportunity, Maerie fled the sept with Penny in tow. With all the adults at work, no one was around to see them leave the sept. Maerie grinned madly as she pulled Penny along with her towards the river. "Let's go skip stones." 

"But Maerie-" 

" _Penny_." That shut her up, and Penny let herself be dragged along all the way down to the river's edge. The girls skipped stones for hours and played tag, dirtying their new clothes soon enough. At dusk, Penny wanted to go back, but Maerie told her to go along with out her. 

"I like the look of the sunset from here." She lied. And Penny clearly didn't believe her but left anyway. 

Maerie sat and watched the sun sink behind the hills and the starts blink into existence. She laid on her back in the mud and looked for the heroes of the Faith in the stars, and then the heroes of legend, and then for her own shapes. In the distance, she heard the cry of her name. She blinked at what she thought might have been one of the Seven Wanderers and it was morning. There was no crying of her name, only the chirping of birds. Maerie decided to move along before Penny showed them the way. 

She found herself sitting under the Black Bridge like some troll, listening to the guards jabber and the miners and mules cross. In the distance, her name echoed all morning and afternoon throughout the valley. She poked at the river with a piece of driftwood and made shapes in the mud. She tried to write her name. Mother had written in the dirt for her once, and she thought she might have seen it in the Seven-Pointed Star another time. 

At noon, the pain in her stomach was almost intolerable. It nearly sent Maerie running towards the call of her name. But she didn't want to marry Willem. She didn't want to be a septa either. She didn't want to be stuffed in a sept on Maiden's Day. She wanted better than what she had or could have. But she couldn't, and all because she was a lowborn girl. The injustice of it all kept Maerie under the Black Bridge past sunset. 

What finally sent her home was a wolf's howl and the shivering cold. The light of Blackbridge Castle, alive with Ser Raymun's wedding party even at the witching hour, guided her home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> And please do leave kudos or leave a comment!
> 
> I really like to give really, really minor characters backgrounds with their own stories. I thought Podrick's parents being a poor lordling and a chandler's daughter sounded interesting.


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